17 These Memories Are Not My Own
by PeechTao
Summary: What happens when Clint wakes one day to the life he always wanted? The loving wife, the adoring children, his friends kept close . . . But deep down he knows it's all a lie. Trapped in a reality created by drugs and nanotech, when he emerges, will he ever be the same again? Kidnapped Avengers, shameless whump, and a shocking proposal, Clint past comes back with a vengeance!
1. Prologue

Here it is! The much anticipated These Memories! Please enjoy this romp through crazy!

now, if you have** NEVER read any of my stories please read the SHIELD AGENT FILE on my profile page,** if you HAVE read my stories, then please skip right down to the main storyline!

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**These Memories Are Not My Own  
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Prologue

The morning rays passed through the gossamer curtains until its warmth reached the sleeping faces. Eyes, blue as the Antarctic ice, appeared beneath the lashed shades to view the world as if for the first time. The body groaned, sighed, and twisted like a bear unearthed from its den. She lay beside him with her head tucked into his chest. Her fiery hair flowed in long straight locks over his arm she'd used as a pillow. She changed her hair again, he mused.

The room was at the same times familiar and foreign. He'd been used to waking up in strange beds in his long history as a spy. The current difficulty? He did not know exactly how he had come across this particular place. It was well styled. The walls were lilac and white but not overtly feminine. The dressing table, doors, even bed were made from the same cherry oak, one of Clint's favorite colors.

_Clint. Clint Barton._ He blinked and brought his arm out from under the woman, Natasha. His feet crossed over the edge of the bed until they planted flat on the carpet. For a moment he felt he couldn't remember his own name. It came to him in a whisper, like the shadow of a dream pulling away leaving its memories behind. His eyes crossed the room for the third time taking it all in but remembering very little of it.

The door burst open, but he did not react. Two young boys, perhaps nine, ten years at most, raced each other to the bed. Once at its side, they clambered on in their socks and Captain American pajamas.

"Breakfast, breakfast, breakfast!" The toe-hard one declared. His bouncing roused Natasha.

"It's the first day of school!" the red-head added.

Natasha pushed up on her elbows, her arms extending to the children until they crashed against her chest in perfect pleasure. She kissed the tops of their heads and then shoved them toward Clint. "You let them watch too much Finding Nemo. Breakfast is in the fridge. Dad's making lunch."

Clint blinked at them. One child whooped. The other jumped and grabbed Clint around the neck before both bounding like young goats towards their bedroom.

Natasha leaned toward him. Her left hand extended, caressing his until their matching wedding bands touched. She kissed his neck with ruby lips that needed no lipstick to enhance their color. "I endured parent day, alone, yesterday. You owe me this morning in bed." It was an order and not one that was open to debate. "Clint, are you all right?" Her tone changed.

He stood from the bed, attempting to smooth the shirt he was not wearing. A fourth examination of the room showed nothing more amiss than the peculiar thoughts tugging at him from his imaginings.

He shook his head. "No, nothing. Just a strange dream I guess."

He approached the dresser, opened the first drawer and found his shirt just where he expected it to be. Satisfied, he unfolded it and pulled the shirt on.

"You've been doing that a lot lately." Natasha replied, less concerned. She returned to her wedge shaped space in the mattress with the blankets to her chin and Clint's pillow. a substitute for his body against hers. "Were you thinking of Steve again?"

Clint pushed the drawer shut. On the dresser top were pictures of their family. Aaron, the blond child, stood poised with his baseball bat over his shoulder and a Blue Jays League jersey on. He was number 14 according to the mock baseball card. Beside it was a matching card of the red-haired twin Philip. He was number 15. On the right rested a picture of Natasha dressed in an unflattering white checkered hospital gown. Two squished child faces were wrapped like burritos and placed with one in each of her arms. The frame also held a photo of Clint with one child, Natasha the other and Tony Stark reclining at the end of the hospital bed as the three smiled into the camera.

Clint knew he had neglected Natasha's question. "Steve?" he asked, still examining his life's work in the photos on the bureau.

"That's what it was yesterday." Natasha replied sleepily. "It's ok to miss him, Clint. We know he wanted to go home. Back where he came from. I bet he finally got that dance he promised his girl too."

The last photo was one of the Avengers, standing in a ring around someone's birthday cake. Tony was wearing two party hats, Clint had three. Natasha had icing on her finger while attempting to insert it in Pepper's ear. Bruce was red-faced as he laughed, cake covered the end of his nose. A candle had somehow ignited Steve's arm and Thor's cheeks were puffed up as he attempted to blow out Steve's shirt. _Where had Steve gone, _Clint wondered. For some reason he couldn't quite remember.

"Dad! The bus will be here any minute!"

Clint removed himself from the memories on the dresser and leaned over the bed to his wife. He planted a kiss along her jaw line, producing a smile in return. He slipped out of the room and pulled the door shut behind himself. There was a single broad hallway that led to the boys' room with a bathroom opposite of them, and an empty guestroom coming last on the right. The hallway then spilled into the common family room with the kitchen wrapped around to the left.

Aaron and Philip were sitting on their stools, waiting patiently with their tin lunch box lids thrown open. The little ricotta quiches Clint had manufactured for breakfast were half devoured already by the bottomless pit boys.

"I want peanut butter." Aaron said.

"I want jelly." Philip said.

"You will both get both." Clint said. He extracted the bread from the box beside the microwave and inspected the jelly choice on the refrigerator door.

"Grape or strawberry?"

"Grape."

"Strawberry."

Clint nodded. He extracted both, retrieved a knife from the island drawer, and rooted for the peanut butter in the cabinet by his feet. Luckily, there was only the choice of creamy and he was able to avoid inquiring their preferences over chunky. As he set to creating the perfect blend of peanut to jelly ratio he asked, "Do you have everything for school?"

"Mom checked last night." Philip said.

"Good." Clint said. He wasn't sure what he would find missing if he checked for himself, so he was satisfied Natasha had taken the opportunity away from him. "Do you know where the bus stop is?"

"Right outside the driveway." Aaron said. "I want the strawberry one, dad."

Clint switched sandwiches. He left the appropriate strawberry in Aaron's Iron Man lunch pail while dropping the grape into the Thor-donned box of Philip.

"Snacks?" Clint asked.

"Bacon?"

"I want candy."

"Candy covered bacon?"

Clint grinned. "No to all of those." He rechecked the food stock of the fridge and came up with two individual packs of applesauce, yogurt, and a pair of apples. Aaron elected for the banana he found beside the sink and a yogurt cup. Phil took yogurt and applesauce.

"Is Uncle Tony coming over today?" Aaron asked. Philip clapped excitedly.

Clint remembered seeing the calendar held up by magnets on the stainless steel fridge. He consulted the day. First day of school was highlighted and circled twice. Natasha's doing most likely. Beneath that was Clint's work schedule. He was due in at the shooting range by eight. That was still two hours away. Natasha's ballet school opened half an hour later. Written, in Tony's handwriting beneath these schedule notes, were the words _"Get ready for me baby"._

"According to your Uncle Tony, he is. I'll call and double check with Pepper though. Water bottles?" Clint asked.

Both boys patted the sides of their light-up Avengers back packs.

The windows briefly flashed with the alternating lights of a yellow school bus. The boys whooped in excitement, grabbed their lunches and rushed the front door. Clint followed them out, catching the screen door before it slapped noisily against the house siding. Aaron and Philip ran for the school bus as the mechanical limbed door pushed open. The driver waved out to Clint.

"Good morning, Mr. Hawkeye!" the driver said.

Clint waved. "Good morning."

"I'll get 'em back by three sharp, sir!"

Clint nodded and smiled. From their seats at the back of the bus, Aaron and Philip frantically flapped their arms toward their father. Clint returned their earnestness as the mechanical door pulled shut with a creek of old spring hinges. The flashing stop sign tucked against the side of the bus and the big engine roared into gear.

A few moments later, the first fall bus for Roosevelt Public School, New Jersey pulled away into the rest of the neighborhood. Standing just outside his door step, Clint looked over toward his close neighbors. The elderly man, the mail box read Rivendell, was easing his walker toward the newspaper left at the end of his drive way. Watching him go, Clint could tell already it would take the man the better part of five days to get there and back to his porch to enjoy it. Abandoning his front door, Clint eased the screen close behind himself and headed across Natasha's hedge of pink rose bushes to Mr. Rivendell's.

"Morning, Mr. Rivendell." Clint said by way of greeting.

The elderly man looked over and smiled. He hadn't taken the time to put his teeth in yet. "Ah, the super man. Come to save this old man from himself?"

"Not unless you need me to." Clint replied. He picked up the newspaper from the drive and walked it to Mr. Rivendell. There was a small basket on the front of his walker so Clint placed the paper in it. "Maybe I can talk to the delivery guy. Have him drop this a little closer to your door."

Mr. Rivendell laughed with his wide gummy mouth. "If you did that, I wouldn't have the excuse to get away from my nagging wife."

Clint chuckled. At Mr. Rivendell's assurance that he could conquer the return trip to his own door, Clint retreated back to his side of the property line. He took a final look at the coming day and disappeared inside, softly closing the screen door behind. He padded through the empty anteroom to the kitchen. After grabbing a coffee pod from the iron wire tree, he placed it into the Keurig to brew. With Natasha's and his cups filled with fresh java, he headed back into their bedroom. Natasha was still in her chosen position with Clint's pillow crushed in her arms. He set her coffee down to cool and climbed back in beside her with his. He prepped the first sip with a few blows of cold air from his lips and tested the heat. Ten burned taste buds later he set his own cup to the side to cool off as well.

"Errrrmmmmm" Natasha moaned into his side. "I don't wanna start today."

Clint smiled, shifting until his head pressed beside her face. "Let's just play hooky then." He said.

"I would love to do that." Natasha replied. "But the final sequence for Swan Lake's choreography is due this Friday and Beth is losing her mind."

"Swan Lake?"

Natasha nodded her chin beneath his. "It's a dance studio. We're always doing Swan Lake. I would stab someone for a chance to turn Anastasia into a ballet. That critic from Manhattan would cut his own throat to get near it."

"So violent this morning." Clint chuckled.

"It's called killer withdraw." Natasha released his pillow and stared up at him. "Did you make me coffee?"

"It's still hot."

"Thank you." She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. It was supposed to be a quick peck on her way to the shower but that was always how their morning started. A quick kiss became a passionate kiss. A passionate kiss led to his hands in her hair and hers at his waist. Clint took her against him as his eyes drifted closed to enjoy their embrace. He couldn't imagine a happier time in his life. It was right. It was beautiful and it was his.

Lost in her embrace, his mind went slightly grey. He could blame it on the passion, the excitement, the scent of his woman against him. He couldn't imagine the truth; that, just a reality away, someone in a long white coat worked around him, drawing the next syringe to feed into his veins.

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So, return of the cliff hangers! I want reviews, so-go!


	2. Chapter 1

Special thanks to icanhearthedrums for the help on this one and getting it to look and sound just right!

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Chapter 1

Clint walked down the line of the shooting range, cleaning the left over debris from the night before. A stack of black silhouette targets was beneath one arm. He stood in the individual lanes, changing the targets to fresh ones, and removing the old shell casings that lodged endlessly in the most unusual places. His task complete on the gun side, he moved to the next room for the indoor archery targets.

There were ten aisles. Each had its own round straw target at the end of the 25 meter line. He left the remainder of his black silhouettes on the operator table by the door and exchanged them for the three part or single targets. As he headed to the targets, he read over the banner above the back wall. There was to be an Indoor National tournament in four weeks in Virginia.

Clint smiled. It wouldn't really be fair of him to attend. Had he ever attended one before? He couldn't exactly remember, but he was sure he hadn't. One of the round bales was looking weathered. He made a mental note to order a new one.

Targets pinned in place, he scanned the tarp behind the target area. He came up with a handful of fletches, three arrows, and a few metal and plastic nocks. As he returned to the operator station, he tested the three arrows in his palm. Two were bent beyond repair. The last had a bump he didn't like, but wouldn't know whether or not it was worth keeping without trying it out.

He emptied the nocks, fletches, and other arrows on the desk, and stepped up to the back wall to pick his bow off of its standard hook. He checked it over from riser to string to assure its working order and nocked the arrow. Clint stepped up to the twenty five meter line, set his feet just so, flexed the muscles in his shoulders, and thrummed his fingers properly along the string like a harpist preparing for the first strum. He exhaled, lifted the bow riser over his head, and inhaled as he pulled the string back to his chin.

The pain shot through his arm like a lightning bolt.

Clint cried out, releasing the arrow prematurely to skitter off the wall like a ricocheting rocket. He nearly dropped his bow as he cradled his right arm against his chest. The pain made him insensible. He stood shaking, adrenaline pumping. It was as if an unknown assailant had walked up behind him, and shot him in the elbow with a .357 Magnum.

The door to the gun range flung inward.

"Barton, what are ya thinkin'?!" the man exclaimed.

He hurried to Clint's side. A gimpy right leg caused his movement to be akin to a hopping jack rabbit. The man took Barton's bow from his hands and rehung it on the wall. He returned, placing his hand across the archer's shoulders.

"Ya go stark loony? Doc says ya can't shoot, ya aimin' to prove 'im wrong by takin' yer own arm off?"

Clint recognized his face from the employee-of-the-month wall as he walked in. The man was the only picture there. Bull Weathers. He wanted to say something smart, but it was obvious by the paleness of his face how well that would go. The fire had died down in his pained limb, but the protest was still on.

"If ya go and try that again, won't be my head the wife takes off." Bull continued. Gently, he added. "Can I get ya an aspirin?"

"We got ice?" Clint asked.

"A full chest of it right in yer office just for this same gol-rash reason. I don't know why ya sit there and do it to yerself. Don't listen to me none, so I dunno why I even try." Bull hiked a thumb the opposite way he'd come. There was a door, beside the tubs of practice arrows, and he led Clint through it to the Avenger's office. The place was sparse, save for the desk and chair. A mini ice chest was tucked behind the doorway and lined by two bookshelves. Behind the desk and office chair were three four-foot steel file storage containers. On top of those were more pictures of home and family.

"Dang idiot." Bull complained. "Don't know why I even try." He waited for Clint to sit in the chair before opening the ice chest and procuring one of the more than a dozen ice packs found within. He perched on the end of the desk and handed the ice pack over.

Clint took the offering gratefully and wrapped the coolness around his elbow. He winced as the pain flared instantly at the new intrusion.

"Don't worry, I won't tell the missus." Bull said. "'sides, she'd probably just say it's my idea anyways."

"I can't even remember what I did to it." Clint admitted, shaking his head.

Bull stared at him. And stared some more. Then laughed. After his knee slapping guffaw was over, and after it became apparent his boss was serious, he stopped. "Well ya got to be jokin' me around, aint ya?"

Clint's plaintive glare did not retreat.

"Huh." Bull said. He shrugged, as if Clint experiencing bouts of amnesia was a common occurrence in their relationship. He looked around the room for a moment to find something. Locating what he was searching for, he gimped his way to the book shelf, plucked something off of it, and gimped back. He planted himself on what was his resident spot on Clint's desk, and shoved the newspaper article under Clint's nose.

With a wary glance at Bull, Clint dropped the ice pack onto the desk. With a slightly wet hand, Clint grabbed the newspaper Bull was overly eager to present him.

His heart pounded in his chest, and the pain in his arm temporarily forgotten, as his eyes slowly took in the words on the faded black and white paper.

"_Avenger saves world, but loses all!" _read the 's eyes widened. He looked back up at Bull, who nodded slightly as a nudge for him to continue reading. Clint's eyes lowered back to the paper.

"_It was a sad day for the men and women of Stark Tower's Avengers today. After the invasion of the Chitauri made Hawkeye a house hold name and beloved member of the Avengers, the talented archer gave everything up to save the inhabitants of planet Earth. On June 10__th__, the Animatronic cyborg, known as Deathlock, had taken control of the underground bunker in Camp David. With the President and Vice President together, the villain was intent on launching nuclear missiles through, what is known in the White House, as the Nuclear Football, a mobile command box accessible to the President in all locations of the globe."_

"_In a selfless act, Hawkeye infiltrated Camp David and took on Deathlock single handedly, while The Black Widow and Steve Rogers (also known as Captain America) absconded with the President and Vice President. In his attempt to stop the villain,_ _Hawkeye's bow arm was crushed. The Avenger was rushed to a local hospital, where he was promptly taken into surgery. After many harrowing hours in the operating room, Hawkeye's arm was saved from amputation. The news was certainly a happy one when it was told that Hawkeye's arm would make a recovery, although with limited range and mobility. But, the prognosis for his ability to shoot an arrow, was a dire one indeed. Hawkeye, one of World's Mightiest Heroes, Avenger, and possibly the world's most accurate master archer, will never be able to fire a bow again."_

Clint read and re-read the article three times. He stared at the page so hard that the words started to blur. Bull was blessedly quiet as he watched his boss' world shatter around him. Clint's hands clutched the pages with a death grip.

When he could no longer make out the words on the page, Clint's eyes were slowly drawn to the photo screaming out at him from the front page. It was a picture of Deathlock struggling in Steve's iron grasp as Clint lay prone in Natasha's arms. No caption was necessary to explain the obvious destruction of Clint's entire forearm.

The newspaper dropped to the floor with no more than a whisper. How ironic that something that light could completely freeze Clint's body. Bull watched the younger man, ready to spring into action if Clint looked like he was about to freak out.

Slowly, Clint looked down at his arm. The scars were hard to find, but they were there. He must have had a talented surgeon. He quickly recovered when he realized his employee was staring at him with a wary eye. Clint took in a shaky breath before picking up the fallen newspaper and returning it to its proper folded state. As Clint pinched the well-worn creases, something caught his eye.

Beside the article about Clint's massive injury, there was another column. Apparently, Bruce Banner had won the Nobel Peace Prize on his work with relativity and trans-dimensional portal creation. His life's work was slowly accumulating to the one thing he desired most; a way to reverse time, and return Steve Rogers to the family he lost when his plane went down in the ice.

"Bruce did it." Clint said, a smile small on his face.

Bull took the article from Clint's fingers and placed it properly back on its shelf. Clint wondered what other memories were tucked up there. "Ya haven't talked about Rogers in two years. Not to me, at least."

"I must miss him." Clint said.

Bull nodded. "Most the world does. Most the world 'spected the man ta go back, find his girl, have some babies and, nowadays, we'd be up ta our necks in kids claimin' Steve Rogers was their daddy. Guess if he got what he wanted, found that girl he was keen on, they musta hid out someplace. Man don't age. If he'd gone back right, didn't get 'imself killed somehow, he'd a shown up someplace by now. Figures when Dr. Banner quit lookin' for 'im, ya did too."

Clint nodded. Most of this was news to him, though it was becoming more and more familiar the longer Bull spoke. He leaned back in his chair. Pasted to the ceiling tile over him was a printed sign that professed how much Clint should get out of his office. He was sure Tony had put it there along with the twelve pencils stuck into the tile surrounding it.

"Do I ask this a lot?" Clint inquired.

"Don't remember it yerself. What other job 'ave I got but ta keep ya on track?" Bull replied. "Yer a smart feller, Barton. But ya don't got the best noggin' fer keepin' stuff straight no more."

"This morning, I forgot I had kids." Clint admitted.

"Yeah, wells, that's happened once or twice too. Ya didn't try ta kill one of 'em did ya?"

Clint chuckled. "No, I didn't do that."

Bull slapped his knee. "Then that's improvement I can drink to!" He extracted a flask from his vest pocket, unscrewed the top with his thumb and forefinger, and offered it to Clint after taking a long draw.

Clint shook his head. "Thank you, but I prefer coffee without the Irish at nine A.M."

The man shrugged and chugged a second pull. "Figures it this way," he said, re-screwing on the cap. "Ya just keep on keepin' ta yerself, sir, and I'll keep on keepin' ya on track."

"Sounds like a deal, Bull." Clint said. He wondered how many times in the past he agreed to the same arrangement.

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:(:):(:):

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It was two-thirty in the afternoon when Clint left the shooting range. Bull had sprung him loose (even though Clint was technically the boss) so he could get home in time to go out again with Tony Stark. Apparently, Pepper had called to remind him.

Clint took solace in the fact that his friends were so good about keeping him on track. He wasn't frightened by his trouble to remember pieces of his life, but perhaps the reason for that was his friend's lax attitude about it. They had been through this ringer before and were fully equipped to keep him from being over excited. He felt his memories coming back, like that dream he had trouble waking from.

He parked his car in the driveway and locked the door behind himself. The front door was already open. He wanted to feel panicked, but a small voice in his mind reminded him Natasha was coming back early as well.

Peeking into the front door, he called inside. "Tasha?"

He saw the smoke billowing from inside, and suddenly his heart leaped into his throat.

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Tell me how much you hate cliffhangers. I want to feel the discontent.

please review!


	3. Chapter 2

Thank you for all the great reviews! Glad you are loving it!

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Chapter 2

Smoke poured from the stove top. Natasha stood in the kitchen, a fire extinguisher in one hand, and a rag in the other. With the rag, she beat the stove into submission. Clint smiled as he rushed over and flipped the stove knobs off. He grabbed a pair of pot lids and dropped them over the frying pans to choke out the fires. Natasha had a black apron tied around her waist. The unscathed white corner of the apron told of its original color.

"Culinary attempts? Has the world come to an end?" Clint asked. The flames were out, but he left the lids in place until the smoke died down. He couldn't decide what the food had been to begin with.

"I didn't feel like ordering out." She said, replacing the fire extinguisher.

"I could cook." Clint told her. He removed the pan lids and slid them into the sink. The menu comprised of steak, though now it resembled burnt jerky more than filet mignon.

"Stark said he's taking you and Bruce out. I haven't had a single night in this week." She leaned against the marble counter top. "I'm staying here. Pepper and I are drinking a bottle of wine, planting the kids in front of a Disney movie, and she's bringing her friend Sam who is a trained masseuse."

"Sounds like a nice night. I'm actually a little jealous." He said. He trashed the charred beef and placed the still sizzling pan in the sink before opening the fridge. "Any steak left?" he asked.

Relenting her subpar culinary skills to the more talented archer, she retreated to one of the island stools. Propped with her hands beneath her chin, she watched him work. "No, I destroyed two others before you came home."

Clint checked the time glowing from the green clock on the stove. Nearly three p.m. "Little early to start dinner plans, isn't it?"

"The minute Tony shows up you two are taking off, and I can't make you cook for me."

Clint smiled. "I've been played."

"You have."

"What do you want instead of steak?"

"Pad Thai noodles with salmon and snap peas, with your raspberry dressing and pecans."

Clint held the milk in one hand as he scanned the fridge shelves. He threw a look over his shoulder. "How incredibly specific of you."

"I might have mentioned it to Pepper."

"You only burned four steaks? Maybe I should make you burn the salmon too for my amusement." Clint dodged the apple thrown at his head, and set about extracting the needed ingredients from around the kitchen. With Natasha's skills as a cook in severe need of a culinary class, Clint had taken on the chef's position in the family. Most of his own life, he'd survived on noodles in a cup, or produce which needed little thought in order to consume. Desperation for a varied palate translated to his cooking prowess. The salmon required an hour to set in the raspberry sauce he found prepped. Apparently, his past self already considered this possibility and equipped him for it.

With the salmon resting in its flavorful baggies on the top shelf of the fridge, he turned his attention to the noodles. He set a pot of water to boil, found an un-charred frying pan, and dropped a few handfuls of snap peas into a glaze of the raspberry sauce and olive oil. The water boiled, so he added a salt and box of pad thai noodles to soften.

"Bull says, 'hi'." Clint conversed as his hands worked expertly around the stove.

"How has he been?" Natasha asked.

"I'm not sure, I didn't ask." Needing the second front burner, Clint lifted the pot of water and edged it back onto the stove. His already abused elbow protested viscously at the most recent intrusion. He dropped the pot with a bang and retracted his arm against his side.

Natasha stood and took a step toward him.

"It's fine." Clint said quickly. "Just forgot."

"Were you trying to shoot today?" she accused.

Clint flicked the burner on and the noodles continued to boil. He massaged the back of his arm as the pain dulled to an angry roar. "Yeah, well, I forgot that too."

A large grey SUV pulled past the windows and stopped in the driveway. The driver's hand laid on the horn like a New York taxi. Whatever Natasha planned to say in regards to Clint's archery attempt, went unsaid. Tony had arrived, and that would take precedence.

Without bothering to knock, Tony threw open the front door. He had a bag under one arm, and a raven haired girl dangling around his neck. Her wide expressive eyes grew impossibly larger when she saw Natasha and Clint.

"Aunty Tasha!" she exclaimed, wiggling her arms.

Tony lifted her, one handed, from around his neck, and her feet were already running before she touched the ground. She launched into Natasha's arms giggling excitedly.

"Hey, feathers!" Tony announced. He lifted the bag and placed it on Natasha's vacated stool. "Pepper said to bring wine, but I bought a case of something for us too. She got you slaving over the stove again?"

Natasha balled her apron and it landed in Tony's face. The little girl laughed, to Clint it was the most beautiful sound in the world, like the sound of spring daisies blooming, or autumn leaves dropping in fall.

The screen door opened again as Pepper entered. Her friend, Sam the masseuse, walked in beside her. She was an African-American woman, with naturally curled hair, and a smart mini skirt that reflected sophistication and business all at once. She reminded Clint of Pepper herself. It was no wonder they were friends. Pepper had a tray of deviled eggs she set on the counter, and Sam offered something decadently chocolate beneath a cake-cover top.

"Chocolate, wine, and salmon. No wonder us guys aren't invited." Clint said to his wife.

"That's right." She replied matter-of-factly. The raven haired daughter of Tony Stark played with the small rosettes on her blouse. "So cook for us and get out. It's girl's night."

"I'm a girl!" the child declared.

Natasha squished their faces together. "That's right. And we don't have to put up with those stinky men, huh? Except for Phil and Aaron they should be back soon. You want to go raid their toys before they come in?"

"Yeah!"

Natasha let her down. Before the child scrambled away, she detoured into the kitchen. Her small pale arms circled Clint's waist. He hugged her with one hand while the other stirred the snap peas. One little finger curled into his face, beckoning him to bend down to her level.

When he did, she whispered none-to-softly, "I don't think you're smelly, Uncle Hawkeye."

Clint planted a kiss on her forehead and she scampered away.

Pepper claimed his attention. "So this is my friend Samantha Parker. Sam, this is Natasha Romanov-Barton and Clint Barton."

Sam shook hands with Natasha and extended her hand to Clint. He wiped his fingers from the stray pieces of snap peas and raspberry sauce on his pant leg and shook as well.

"A pleasure, Sam." Clint said.

"Pleasure's mine, Mr. Hawkeye. This is a big honor. I'm still not really used to being around Mr. Stark." Sam said with a glowing bone white smile.

"Does anyone get used to that?" Natasha asked.

The school bus pulled alongside the house just as the creaking hydraulic door squeaked open. Through the front windows, the party could see the friendly driver waving a goodbye to the household as the Barton twins exited and flew up the front yard together.

Their exclamations for "Uncle Tony" were heard before the door even opened. When it did, the excitement was impossible to contain. Tony hid behind the center island, and the minute the two approached, all legs with backpacks and lunch pails flying in all directions, Tony burst out of his spot. The children screamed, laughed, and attacked all at once. Tony roared like a monster, and with Aaron hanging onto one bicep and Phil on the other, Tony preceded to strongman them across the living room floor.

"Pepper!" Tony called. "Pepper, I want one. We get to pick one right?"

"Yes, but only one, dear." She played along.

"No!" the boys cried in unison.

"Who am I gonna eat?" Tony replied, grabbing hold of Aaron and pretending to devour his side.

"No! No! No!" the twins laughed.

Clint took the snap peas off of the heat and set them aside until the noodles finished. He poured the candied pecans into a ziplock bag and crushed them to more manageable pieces beneath a rolling pin. As he went through these little motions of domesticity, he watched the boys wrestle across the floor with a strange sort of detachment. He knew this was home. This was everything he ever wanted and more; He had two wonderful boys, a beautiful wife, friends, a house, a normal job . . .

Looking from the outside in was a fitting chance to put into perspective just how lucky he had it. He wondered how long this cloud of forgetfulness typically lasted. He declined asking Natasha, not wanting her to worry more than she most likely already did over him.

"Can I help?"

Barton was so engrossed in enjoying the view of Tony wrestling his kids across the floor, he'd stopped crushing the pecans and leaned on counter, his hand massaging the still painful back of his forearm. Pepper claimed his attention.

"Oh, sorry, what?"

She removed the pecan chips from the ziplock bag and poured them into the bowl he had waiting. Apparently, she'd watched him cook this meal before.

"Is it bothering you?" She asked, indicating his arm.

Clint shrugged. "Off and on today."

"I'm sorry, Clint."

He gave her an odd look. "Sorry? What for?"

"What for?" She repeated sadly. "Oh, any number of things. Sorry you had to give up what you loved. Sorry we can't do more to help. Sorry for living so far away."

Clint chuckled. He took his wooden mixing spoon and swirled the contents of his boiling pot. "Pepper, stop being sorry for things."

The living room antics died down as Tony lay, slain by Aaron's arrow and Philip's shield. With his tongue lolling from one side of his mouth, Stark splayed across the floor with his arms stretched out on both sides dramatically.

Natasha's motherly tone warned the victorious duo that if they didn't haul their cans into their room, a visiting girl was going to rob them blind. That sent the boys running. With his attackers retreating, Stark sprang back to life. He stretched his back as he removed himself from the carpet.

"All right, hawk head. Can we go get Banner now? Tasha can handle the women food crap, right?" He smiled innocently at the assassin who elbowed him, gently, in the gut.

"You boys shove off." Pepper declared. Sam absconded with Clint's wooden spoon, and Pepper checked the marinating fish in the fridge. "Go enjoy yourselves. Tell Bruce I said hi."

"Me too." Sam and Natasha agreed.

Without any more adieu, Tony and Clint made their escape. Tony extracted his keys from one pocket and declared he was driving. As he'd parked Clint's car in, the former archer couldn't complain. He curled around the front of the SUV and climbed in shotgun. Tony backed the car out of the driveway. Soon after, they headed off down the street to the main roadways beyond the cul-de-sac and, Clint assumed, toward Bruce Banner.

"Can I ask you something?" Clint said.

Tony lifted an eyebrow. "No."

"Come on, serious question."

Tony shrugged. "No, Clint, I never considered our relationship anything more than platonic. You are a married man. Just because I am not does not necessarily mean I am available."

Clint snorted. He had noticed Tony didn't wear a ring. Despite the depth of his affection for Pepper, Clint knew Tony wasn't the marrying type. They had a daughter and, unless Pepper pushed the issue, that would be the extent of her matrimonial connection to one Tony Stark. "If I was about to proposition you, I would be the one driving." Clint said.

Tony laughed.

"I've been having trouble remembering things today." Clint explained. "Just little things like the fact that I have kids. That I can't shoot anymore. I don't want to admit that I don't even know the name of your daughter right now, Tony."

The SUV slowed for a red traffic light. Tony turned in his seat to look at Clint. For a while, he did not respond. His eyes searched his friend's, not in an accusatory way. Clint recognized the scientist gleam in his eye; he was being analyzed. The traffic light turned green and Tony eased into the intersection, following the signs for Princeton University.

"All right." He said at last. "Sorry, it's been a bit since you had such a big lapse."

"That's what Bull said." Clint affirmed.

"Docs thought we were passed it. Shows how much they know. You were always full of surprises." Tony went on.

Clint nodded as if he understood.

"So, let's just go through what we usually do. What's the last memory you have? Before this morning, before yesterday, the last vivid memory you had?"

Clint considered the question. Tony spoke as if they had played this game a good many times in the past. When he thought about it, admitted finding just such a livid memory became difficult. "Well, I remember a mission in Libya. I was on an extraction team that picked up Phil. And . . . after that . . . The funeral. Frigga's funeral. Quitting SHIELD."

Tony nodded as he spoke. "Ok, getting closer. Most recent."

"Mexico...Cancun, maybe. I remember Steve was there, but I don't remember anyone else. I don't really remember what we were doing. I know we were at a base, and Steve and I were trying to get in. It was familiar, like we'd been there before. Maybe a SHIELD research facility. The door was stuck. It hadn't been used in a while."

Tony whistled. "God, Clint, that's going back. That's like, twelve years back. Nothing since then? Did you say Cancun?"

"That long ago? I think it was Cancun. I have to think about it again." Clint admitted.

"Bella, Bella."

Clint looked at him again. For a moment it wasn't Tony Stark he saw sitting across from him, but another person from very long ago. Everything around him seemed to fade out of view and he found himself staring at someone he tried very hard to forget. In his mind, he stood as a child looking into a kitchen. A woman there stirred noodles in a large tin pot as she whispered little Italian words to him. He closed his eyes and the strange memory left. Tony still sat beside him.

"What did you say?" Clint asked.

"My little girl," Tony clarified. "Her name is Isabelle. She's six years old as of two weeks from now, and you're coming to the party if only to save me from the ankle biters from her school. It's at the Tower, Natasha already coordinated the trip up. Does she know about this? This memory thing today?"

"She knows I tried to shoot. You saved me from an earful showing up when you did."

"You tried to shoot?!"

Clint lifted his hands and let them drop to his lap. It hurt. "Yeah, well, realized my mistake after."

"Are you all right?" Tony pressed, his voice pitched in concern. "Did you tear something? Break something? Do you feel all right?"

"Yes, mom, I feel fine. It hurts, but I'm not dying. Bull gave me a few Aspirin and an ice pack. It's better now, but imagine my surprise when it felt like someone hauled off and shot me."

"I _can't_ imagine." Tony replied. His fingers were tense on the steering wheel. Clint could see the self-berating coursing through him. It wasn't his intention to make Stark upset, but out of everyone he'd encountered today, he'd always felt the most comfortable in conversations of this kind with Stark. Now that Natasha was his wife, he felt it a disservice telling her that he'd forgotten his own children's names. The result would most likely be similar to what he witnessed in Tony.

"Hey, look, forget I said it." Clint told him. "I just woke up on the wrong side or something. I don't wanna damper our night out."

"No, don't – " Stark interrupted him. "Don't do that. Don't brush it off. It's ok. Sorry it's just been a while since we did this. Let's go back a second again and start over. So you remember the Mexico mission. You might have been in Cancun. You and Steve were trying to open the door. It wasn't long after that mission, maybe two weeks, that we had the incident with Deathlock."

"He crushed my arm." Clint said. "Bull showed me the news article."

"Right. You went into shock. He cut your radial artery on top of everything else. By the time you showed up in the ER, you were dead for three minutes. They bled Steve, I think four or five times, to pump you full of his soldier serum and get you stable again. By the end of the first day, they said you were brain dead. The second day, Bruce found some signs that you weren't. A week later, you twitched. After three months, you could finally sit up.

"The public went nuts. The President's rescue was massively publicized and you taking on Deathlock, by yourself, rescuing the VP, and getting almost killed were all caught on security cameras. Someone leaked the footage. Everyone in the world wanted to know about you. There were some days I couldn't walk into the hospital room without falling over all the stacks of cards and flowers and crap people kept sending to us. The President and First Lady visited you, too. You were always a hero, Clint." Tony looked over as he said it, making sure Clint understood the depths of his words. "_Always_. Just all of a sudden, the world knew it too. There were the surgeries. The recovery. We had to take it one day at a time for a real long time. Tasha was always there. She was there more than I was, and I'm telling you that honestly, Clint. None of us were surprised when the two of you got hitched."

"I'm surprised she said yes." Clint admitted, laughing.

"She had to, she asked you." Tony reminded him.

Clint laughed harder.

"If it was up to you, Clint, I don't think you'd have let her. You sure weren't asking her ever."

"Like you and Pepper?" Clint turned the tables.

"Well, I'm just not that kinda guy. You know that."

Clint did. "Ok, so that explains why everyone in the world knows me. I saw a bunch of guys from the police department at work earlier, and every single one of them wanted to shake my hand. Bull said to just go with it, so I did, but it was weird."

"Like I said, you turned into Iron Man worthy celebrity status."

Clint settled down in his seat, stretching his legs out in front of him to get comfortable. "Great." He said, but he was unconvinced.

They pulled onto College Drive and entered the campus proper of Princeton University. The tree lined road way lazed by the windows as the cool day brought an end to summer. Most of the classes were still in session, lending a relatively traffic free drive to the back of the science building. Bruce Banner was standing in a ring of other doctors from the university staff. He had his white coat over one arm as he enjoyed the sunlight outside the lab constraints. Tony laid on the horn to break up the gaggle of doctors. Bruce shook hands with the company and jogged over to where the SUV pulled through the parking lot. Tony gestured sideways to the driver's side for Bruce to get in.

"Sorry, the car seat is on his side." Tony said as Bruce pulled the back door open. "Shove the bag over, I brought us a case of beer and I picked the Hawk up first."

"Yeah, see that." Bruce pushed the beer over and sat. He strapped the seatbelt across his chest and leaned forward to pat Clint's shoulder. "Hey, long time no see, you hermit. How are the boys? Did they get blue ribbon at the 4H science fair on Friday?"

Clint was glad when Tony answered instead of him. "Clint's having a little bit of a lag today. I've been working to catch him up."

Bruce was on the edge of his seat now. "What? Really? What can't you remember? Do you remember me coming by last Sunday?"

"No, I don't actually." Clint felt less ashamed to admit. After what he and Tony discussed, he felt better about losing his long term memory now and again. Apparently, it always came back. No doubt he would wake up in the morning and get back to normal life again.

"He's back in Mexico." Tony said.

"Mexico? When was the last time we went there? Was that the vacation you took us on last summer?"

"No, Mexico-Mexico. Like 12 years back, I-quit-SHIELD-but-I'm-helping-Steve-on-a-mission-Avenging, Mexico."

Clint watched Bruce's eyes widen. "Oh. Well, that _is_ going back."

"Yeah."

"And Steve, you said?"

Clint acknowledged it.

"Do you remember what you were doing there? I can't think of it now and it's not like we can ask Steve anymore."

Clint thought about it now as he had before. He took his time to work through the cobwebs of his brain. The more he tried to focus on the memory the farther away it crawled. "We took a plane to get there. The place was on a hill overlooking some inlet or something. I think I was piloting. I think I was. I can't remember a lot after that."

"We'll work on it." Bruce said. "We've got a whole case of beer and I'm designated driver, so you and Tony can drink it up and play on memory lane. In the meantime," He produced a deck of cards from his back pocket. "I brought these along to rob you both blind. Bruce-y wants a new car."

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so not so much of a cliffy today, but enjoy all the same:)

please review!


	4. Chapter 3

and who asked for a little dose of reality? here you go:)

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Chapter 3

He could hear the voice as clearly as his own thoughts. It echoed around the empty room over the drip . . . drip . . . drip of the fluid droplet into the liter bag. Clint attempted to adjust his head but it was fixed in place. He edged his heavy eye lids to pry against the tape sticking them closed. When he looked out at the world, the heart monitor began to peak and fall like cursive letters.

The room was strikingly white. He'd expected something dark; a dungeon filled with instruments of torture and men in leather and chains. The cleanliness panicked him more than the sight across from him.

"Steve?" Clint whispered. "Steve? Are you back, Steve?"

"It's not real!" Steve shouted. "Wake up, Clint! Clint, It's not real! I'm real! Clint, I'm real!"

Steve was tied to a chair, his shield hung on the wall behind him. Strange electrodes were placed on the center star and traced to the machine beside him. Steve screamed at him. He sounded desperate. He looked heartrending. Clint wanted to understand why. The archer tried to pull his arm up to his face but it would not move. He felt uncomfortable in the chair, so he meant to roll over.

"Where's Aaron?" Clint asked Steve.

"Who?" Steve shot back. "Clint, don't believe what they're telling you! Look at me!"

Clint continued to try and sit up. His mind wasn't registering why he couldn't. He didn't notice the duel heavy straps buckled over his chest, or the matching strait jacket that crossed his arms over his chest. Little holes had been cut along his arms, allowing the tubes and lines to be exposed. His head was held in place by a sort of metal cap, not unlike those once used to electrocute prisoners to death.

"Where's Phil? And Tasha?" Clint asked.

"Clint, _please_!" Steve beat against the wheelchair in an attempt to get free. They were both trapped. The door opened with a whoosh of cool air. Clint closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the feel across his skin. He hadn't realized he felt hot.

Three men approached. Two broke off by Steve. They leaned over, released the wheel locks on the chair that restrained him, and took him from the room. His desperate cries to his teammate hit a crescendo as they wheeled him away. The third man leaned down to Clint with an inviting smile. Clint recognized him briefly from the gaggle of doctors Bruce had conversed with the day before. Was it the day before?

"I think I'm drunk." Clint said.

"Mr. Barton, you are drunk." The doctor replied.

"Tony take me here? After the card game?"

"He did. And now it's time to get you back to bed." The doctor said. He checked the hanging fluids over Clint's head. The archer watched him curiously. The doctor adjusted a button on the machine, turning a little green number from 5 to 10.

"My arm hurts." He said.

"You shouldn't be trying to shoot your bow, Mr. Barton. If you do, I can guarantee it will cause you considerable pain. For now, go back to sleep. You have a big day tomorrow."

Clint nodded. He suddenly felt very tired. "Do I?"

"Yes, tomorrow you are going to start remembering. But we have to start somewhere." He retrieved a syringe from the metal tray beside the line of fluids. The doctor removed the cap, felt around on the exposed skin of Clint's arm, and slowly injected.

"What's that?" the archer asked.

"Just a little something to keep you down." The doctor said.

"Was that Steve?" Clint asked. He wanted to panic. He knew something felt wrong but he couldn't understand what.

"How could it be?" The doctor asked.

"How could it be? Yeah, I guess you're right." Clint's head was heavy and seemed to be gaining weight by the minute. It sank down on his neck as the doctor mercifully reclined the back of his chair. "Start somewhere?"

"Let's start in Mexico. You remember Mexico?"

"Yeah."

"Let's start there and see where it all leads."

:(:):(:):

The sunlight felt unnaturally warm on his face. Clint slipped a hand beneath his pillow and flipped it over to the opposite side. Nothing quite compared to the cold side of the pillow feel. This morning, he had command of both arms. Natasha was already out of bed. He could hear her in the kitchen talking to the kids and the honk of the bus driver along the side of the house. Clint stretched in bed.

He focused on the pictures along the black and grey painted walls. Hanging directly in the center stood the one of the Avengers' vacation to Mexico City. Beneath that hung another of Steve and him outside Tony's former Malibu home. The wedding photo of Natasha standing against him, in what looked like a hot night, brought a smile to his face. She was beautiful in her dress.

"Still in bed, lazy?" Natasha asked. She moved past the bed to her dresser, rifling through the drawers for her daily wardrobe.

"Hey, you got to be lazy yesterday." Clint said. "I feel like I got a hangover. I don't even remember where Tony brought us last night. I think Banner may have taken off with our next mortgage payment too."

Natasha laughed. She settled on her little-too-baggy pink yoga top and black leggings. She turned toward him as she changed. "Mrs. Bielski gave us this house for free after you saved her two kids from getting hit by a bus." She reminded him. "I feel like a million bucks. Sam needs to come over way more often, every night often. I think we need to build a spare room."

Clint smiled.

"You had a rough night though. Kept talking in your sleep. Everything ok?" She balled her pajamas in one hand and dropped them into the laundry hamper beside the bathroom door.

"Weirdest dream. Some guy had me strapped to a chair and I think he was shooting me up with heroin actually."

Her look held all the emotion he expected.

"It's been a strange last couple days." Clint confessed. "Woke up yesterday, I was lucky I remembered who you were."

She had gone into the bathroom but at his words returned to the room. She held a hairbrush but had yet to do anything with it.

Clint went on sheepishly. "I didn't want to worry you."

She took a breath and blew it out slowly. Abandoning her other grooming plans, she walked over to the bed and sat on the end of it. Knowing this was the gearing up for an intimate couple talk, Clint sat up with his back against the headboard. Before she could ask, he supplied her with the necessary questions he had already fielded to both Bruce and Tony. She listened without interruption until he finished. She trained as a spy, looking shaken by anything he'd divulged wasn't in her nature. But he could see it regardless.

Natasha asked "Do you want to go in today? Do you want to just stay here and take it easy? I don't want you pushing too hard."

"Is it that or do you just not want me playing with my bow again?"

Her smile returned. "Can it be both?"

"Nah, I'm fine. Promise I won't do it. Besides, there's this college team coming in for archery practice along with some guys from the police department in the town over. Some of them have gun recertification coming up so we've been a little swamped with the extra load."

"Bull can handle it, you know that."

Clint threw off his covers and climbed out of bed. The tile felt cool beneath his feet today. Fall swiftly approached this year. Hardly into the new school term and already the air had the crisp quality of leaves waiting to shift color.

"I know he can. But I don't know what I'd do with myself if I had to twiddle my thumbs around here all day." Eager to change the subject he said, "I dreamed about Steve last night."

"Am I too boring for you to dream about now?" She asked, returning to her hair brushing.

Clint snorted. "No, the dreams don't measure up so I prefer you in flesh and bone."

"Good answer, lover boy."

"I thought it was clever." He rifled through his own dresser and went through his morning preparation the same as she. "No, it was strange actually. Steve, I mean. I think it was more of that Mexico mission I couldn't remember. Or maybe it was a different one. Do you ever remember me telling you about it?"

"I was in Russia when you and he went." She explained with an elastic band in her teeth. As her hands smoothed her hair back for a pony tail, she expertly added the elastic to the tangle.

"I thought it weird you hadn't come. Ok, so there was this door we had to breach right?"

"In Mexico?"

"Yeah. I went in and . . . You know I think it had a keypad. I think so. It must have been. It was SHIELD too." Clint smiled at his own ability to conjure up something from his past. "This would be easier with Steve around, I guess, but that's not really an option, huh?"

Her head shook slowly. "No, it's not."

"Well Steve—in my dream I mean—was warning me about this place we were at. Telling me nothing was real. I couldn't figure out what he was going on about. I must have come home a little too drunk 'cause I was having one of those, I'm-still-drunk-even-though-I'm-actually-dreaming, moments. Ever had that?"

She left the hairbrush on the end table and pulled the covers over the bed and straightened the pillows. "Can't say I have," she replied.

"Well I did. Next time Tony comes by with a case of anything, remind me not to drink it. As bad as I feel, I know I didn't drink near as much as he did. And Tony is not fun when he's drunk. I remember seeing the footage of this one birthday party when Rhodes took off with War Machine." Clint left his dresser and helped tuck in his side of the bed.

"He was asleep on the back seats when Bruce drove back with you." Natasha said. "The kids were already in bed. Since they were spending the night at Bruce's before heading back to Manhattan today, Bruce took Sam, Pepper and Bella over to his house."

"Bella's not in school yet?"

"She starts next Monday."

Clint nodded. He followed Natasha into the kitchen. According to the fridge schedule he was to be at work until 5pm that day. He wasn't sure what lunch places existed in the immediate area of his shooting range, so for today at least he would brown bag it. The left over Pad Thai noodles and snap peas were perfect for that.

"Will you be back when the boys get home?" Clint asked.

She poured milk into a bowl of apple jacks. Her eyebrow rose at him, but then seemed to recall their conversation. "Oh, sorry. Yes. I get off at 2:30. I'll be home until 5:30 when you get back here then I head in and finish the night classes until nine. I should be back before half past."

"Do I normally know that?"

Natasha didn't offer an answer, but he knew despite the silence. He popped a lid on the Pad Thai and circled her waist with his arms. His lips rested in the crease of her collar bone. Wordlessly he held her there, inhaling the smell of her that was now as familiar as air itself. She must have used perfume this morning. The normal strawberry-like infusion of her skin was masked in a sweet like scent that tasted like honey suckles on his tongue.

"I'll try a little harder." He said. "I love you."

"I love you too. And do try. Tell me all about Mexico when I get home, all right?"

He gave her a strange expression. "You shouldn't care about all that. Besides I bet you've had to deal with this story more times than I can count."

She gave him a peculiar smile and turned away from him. Clint was left staring at her back as she walked away. A feeling of danger trickled into his heart, one that he couldn't find a reason for.

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don't forget to review! I have 2 finals left this week to finish my second year of Veterinary school (WHOOT!) so i need a little positive reinforcement to get me through it!


	5. Chapter 4

so, not a lot of people know that I'm actually an archer and for many years i was a pretty darn good one. So when Hawkeye's character hit the big screen i related instantly. A lot of what happens next is taken directly from my own learning experience of starting out as a total newbie then transforming to the trophy-winning archer I was before my career ended in veterinary school (no archery ranges down here)

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Chapter 4

"Ok, so you are the group that has had experience before, or no? No? Good, this will be exciting for everyone then, and I might even look a little smarter too for once."

The group of pre-twenty something's laughed nervously at Instructor Barton's attempt at jesting. The University of Princeton trucked the bus load over early in the start of the morning, and most had never seen a bow and arrow in their life. Their inexperience with the tools of his trade did not mean they were ignorant as to their mentor's identity. After Bull did the initial introduction, they swarmed Clint with autograph requests and questions about his life, the Avengers, and anything else they could possibly think of. He noticed more than a few fan girls in the mix sporting gear, that was no doubt homemade, and resembled his original SHIELD uniform from the New York invasion. That must have been nearly fourteen years ago. Most of the kids were working out potty training back then.

Clint motioned for Bull to come over with the bow he'd picked out to demonstrate on. It wasn't Clint's personal one, given to him by Odin Allfather and the late Frigga. Instead, this training bow had a draw strength less than a tenth of his normal bow. For a student just starting out, it was perfect.

Bull handed it over, but didn't let go when Clint attempted to take it. He gave the archer a hard, long look. A warning straight from Natasha, no doubt. Despite the ease of drawing this bowstring, Clint was not allowed to try it. Message passed and accepted, Bull released the bow limb. The students watched in earnest excitement.

Clint addressed the group. "Now, as most of you know I can't actually shoot anymore. What my good friend just gave me the stink eye for is I did try to shoot yesterday and I darn near pulled my elbow off. So instead, I need a volunteer. Anyone?" At the overwhelming volume of arms shooting skyward, Clint picked the girl who looked less like a carbon copy of himself as an Avenger. Despite her plain clothes, she nearly swooned.

The archer led her to the firing line and Bull arched the others just behind Clint and her to watch. The archer held up a few objects for the others to inspect. The first was a loop of shoe lace. He set one end of the loop on his left thumb and the other on his index finger. "To people who do not do archery, this is a shoe lace. From now on, to you, it is a Finger Sling. This is just as essential to you as your arrow, bow, and bowstring. You may not always see me use one because I tend to lose them and I don't need extra help steadying shots anymore. For you this is absolutely essential. Respect the Finger Sling." Clint motioned to Bull who passed out a dozen for the students. Clint handed his to his demonstrator. Next he slipped a leather strap with a carbon metal piece over his right middle finger.

He held up his hand to show them. "This is your finger tab. Now there are all kinds of these in the world, I usually use a gloved finger tab. But since you won't be shooting any aliens out of the sky, this will work just fine." The students giggled as Bull handed out matching finger tabs down the line. Again, Clint handed his over to the demonstrator.

"All right, so finger sling, finger tab. Now, we have one of the most important pieces – the arm guard." He extracted from his back pocket the familiar two-paddled black arm guard with four elastic straps. This he slid over his left bicep. "When I first started out training, I had a nasty habit of turning my elbow inward like this." He showed them. "Do not make this mistake. This means that your arm is now standing in the way of your bowstring which is trying really hard to shoot your arrow without any extra help from your left arm, (or right arm for you lefties). If your arm is in the way, it will hurt. And, by hurt, I mean it will feel like someone just slapped you with a belt buckle. You will bruise for weeks. I did. A lot of big archers out there make fun of me wearing two arm guards like this, but it's my reminder to keep my elbow turned out and it works just fine for me. If I forget to wear it, then sometimes life reminds me."

The sacred arm guard came off and he handed it to the female demonstrator as well. She held it for a moment, unsure whether she should put it on or build an altar to it. Bull went along passing out others.

"Ok. So that is all you need as far as your hands and arms go. Technically speaking, there are six components to archery. Finger tab, finger sling, arm guard, arrows, bow, and bowstring. Some people work with or without some of those. I – used to, that is – work with what I have available. But you can't shoot without an arrow. You can't shoot without a bow. And you can't shoot without a string. As for the bow – "

Clint held up the one Bull had given him. It was a complete piece, meaning no separation existed between the riser and the limbs. On the top side of the riser, a small black wedge jutted out of the wood to create the arrow rest.

"This is known as a recurve bow. Made popular by Robin Hood, though, technically, his was a long bow. A recurve gets its name from how the limbs at the top and bottom start out by going backward, then curve back forward giving you a tighter grip on the string and more power. Your hand fits here in the grip. For righties, you hold the bow in your left hand and opposite for lefties. You know you are holding it correctly when the grip feels comfortable in your hand. Your line of sight will look down this shelf here," he indicated the black wedge. "This holds your arrows and is known as the arrow rest. Always, always, always check the placement of the string before you shoot!"

Clint turned the bow in his hand to show them what he meant. There were two carved wedges on either end of the limbs where the bowstring snugly fit into place. "If your string slips out of these grooves while you are shooting, that is serious bad news and you will get hurt, break your bow, or both. We aren't going to be shooting with sights on your bows just yet. I want you to get the feel for shooting before we worry about actually hitting something. When I first started shooting, it took me four days to even hit anywhere on the round bale and, let me tell you, my trainer Trick Shot was way meaner about it than I will ever be. So do not be discouraged if you can't hit anything either."

Clint passed the bow to his demonstrator and assembled her equipment properly to his standards. With the bow in her hand, he slipped the finger sling from her thumb to her forefinger, the arm guard fit in place, and he set her finger tabbed right hand on the string with one finger above, two fingers below the small ball on the string that marked where the arrow nock sat.

"Now see how the finger sling is tied on? Now let go of the string, completely let go of the bow, and see what happens."

The girl did so and the top limb eased backwards until it tapped the top of her head.

"Perfect." Clint said. "This is how you know you are holding your bow correctly. Do not grab the riser and strangle the life out of it. You should never actually hold the bow at all when you are shooting. Now, set your hand on the string, good, now don't grab the riser, right, ok, pull back the string slowly. It's hard. This is a twenty five pound pull on this bow. My bow is two hundred and fifty, but then again it was made by aliens."

More laughter. Some students turned in place to look at the intricate bow hanging on the wall at their backs.

With the string pulled back and the girl's arms shaking under the strain, Clint readjusted her left hand to be sure the fingers were pointing forward and not holding the bow. Her right hand he forced back slightly more until her index finger was hooking the side of her mouth like a fish on a line. He went around to her back and pulled her shoulders together, improving her posture and decreasing the shake in her arms.

"This," he said, "is how you are going to shoot. Back straight. Feet planted. Shoulders together. I should be able to hold a quarter between your shoulders. This isn't about arm or hand strength, it's about back strength and tightening your core. Ok let your arms down slowly, **do not release the string**. Good."

He addressed the group again. "When there is no arrow on your string, and you decide to dry fire, or let go of a pulled back bowstring without an arrow, you run the risk of your bow exploding."

The students looked anxiously at each other as if there was a secret piece of C4 attached to the bottom of the bowstring. Some even retreated a few steps from the firing line.

Clint couldn't help himself. He loved when he said that to people and got the same response every time. "Not that kind of explosion. Usually your string will snap. The limbs will fracture and you are left with a useless bow or worse, an injured arm, hand, or eyeball. I knew a guy who dry fired his bow to prove it wasn't dangerous 100% of the time, only to have his string break in half and almost take his eye out. So, what are we never ever going to do?"

"Dry fire the bow." A few students answered.

"Correct. Now, Bull's going to give each of you a bow. I want you to line up along the firing line and practice pulling it back and easing the string forward. I'll come around and watch each one of you do it. Bull, can you grab the extra two training bows from the back? I don't think I brought out enough, thanks." Bull headed into the next room to dig them out while Clint continued with the lesson. "Now, when you go to pull back on the string, I want you to start up high."

He held out his hand for a bow, and one of the students turned one over to him. He set his feet on the line and displayed what he meant by first pointing the bow up to the ceiling, placing his right hand on the string, then inhaled, dropped the bow down, and pulled the string back all at once. He did it without thinking; a habit impossible to break even with all the shouted warnings and evil looks he'd been given the last two days over it. The pain flared down his arm like a scalpel attempting to dissect him. He shuddered, his right hand flying forward to release the bow tension before the pain killed him or he did the one thing he already told them not to do: dry fire.

Clint returned the training bow to the student, attempting to smile despite the obvious mars of agony across his face. "That's how we'll do it." He whispered, trying to find his voice again. He cleared his throat, shaking it off.

"That's how we'll do it." He repeated, louder. "All right, everyone find a spot on the line and we'll practice."

The students were slow to follow his instructions. As they moved toward the line, their faces watched his with concern and excitement. This legendary Hawkeye most had idolized their entire lives showed a weakness they didn't expect. Their instructor, taking his time to teach them, personally, everything he knew and his humanity shined through the mask of fame. Everything the reports ever said about him was true – the great Hawkeye could never shoot again. The moment was melancholy for a lot of them. Some who hoped the reports were all fantasies, that secretly Clint was still a SHIELD spy, or spent his nights hold up at the range shooting pennies out of the air, were now faced with the reality. For that matter, Clint was too.

When Bull returned with the two bows he could tell the mood had changed. Looking instantly to his boss, he could see the same guilty look he'd no doubt witnessed for years. He gave out the bows to the waiting archers as he said, "Ya gal-danged idiot! Ya keep tryin' to shoot somethin' an I'll get the funny farm ta come down 'ere and tie ya to a bed!"

The students laughed nervously at the strange gimpy-legged man ordering the Avenger around. Clint didn't seem to mind, which put the mood in the room back to what it had been before. The lesson went on as the day dragged into the cool September afternoon.

:(:):(:):

Clint walked up and down the archery range in search of stray fletches, nocks, and arrows. It seemed like a continuous fight against the busy day to keep the stray articles in their proper places. He didn't mind the mediocrity of his work. Being on this side of the weapons gallery was like stepping into his own home. The feel of the feathers and sound of the tips and nocks rolling around in his pockets was so much a part of what he considered normal, that without them, he wasn't sure what he would do. Without being able to shoot, he also wasn't sure what he _was_ doing.

His inability to pull back even the training bow weighed heavily on him for the remainder of the day. The students had come and gone. There were more autographs, pictures, and tales of his Avenger days than he cared to remember, but at least the students were inspired. He expected to see half of them back that next Tuesday. As for the others, they had gotten their introduction to stardom and they felt satisfied.

The police officials were easy pleasers. The officers had experience and capabilities, though most had never needed to fire their gun on the job before. Given Clint's status, many there chose to use his gun range instead of the official department one just to get a chance to meet him.

Then, there was the tactics course Clint apparently offered by free choice which he had forgotten about. After the first few rounds of shooting paper targets with the trained assassin picking out minor mistakes and correcting them, a few officers, mainly female, stayed afterwards for a chance to grapple with him. Through the door in the archery room, after the storage area, was a large gym floor covered in mats. Clint had trained enough operatives in his day to give the officers an on-the-fly run of it. They mentioned he was undefeated in the department and, given that afternoon's sparring, the title remained intact.

The place grew quiet since the department headed out twenty minutes before. Clint busied himself with cleaning the archery side while Bull finished up at the front office. In the quiet, Clint became consumed in his thoughts, most of which were more berating then liberating.

How bad could his arm be that he couldn't even handle a 25lb draw pull? To him, it just didn't make sense. Nearly twelve years after the attack, no matter how horrific, he would have found a way to shoot again. Was it Natasha? Did she disapprove and he agreed to not try it? That didn't add up either. She knew archery was his entire life. Even before SHIELD, archery came first. She wouldn't have asked that of him. Why hadn't Tony or Banner fixed him? Those two egg heads were on the forefront of medical biological research, why couldn't either of them fix him? What made him unfixable?

Clint walked back to the firing line with the nocks and fletches rattling in his pockets. Had he stopped trying to shoot? If so, why? The pain? The pain was insurmountable, but Clint knew there were drugs in the world to help manage that. He didn't delude himself into thinking that he would refuse to become a prescription drug abuser if it meant he'd be pain free enough to use his bow arm again.

Before Clint knew it, he stood at the firing line with another training bow in his hands. He looked carefully around for Bull, wondering whether or not his employee would catch him in the act for the third time in two days. Clint's arm still hurt from its previous abuse, but he refused to just leave himself with half attempts. Twenty-five pound draw, one lone arrow; it weighed less than his jeans soaking wet. He'd felt pain. Pain, he could grin and bear, and choke down deep where he wouldn't ever feel it again. He could do this!

Before Bull could catch him, Clint squared his shoulders. He'd shot with a broken ulna before. He couldn't remember when exactly, but it was during a mission in New Delhi. If he could handle that, he could handle this.

Clint inhaled, tightened his shoulders, and pulled the string back to his chin. He knew what to expect first. The pain stabbed him sharply. He went dizzy for a moment, trying to stave it off. If he rode it out long enough, it should lessen. His body would adjust, but it only intensified. He tried to focus forward on the center of the target, but, in a flash, the pain seemed to double. It started out at a ten. Moved to a twenty. Now, Clint was in more agony holding back that twenty-five pound bowstring than anything in his life. He'd been shot in the kidney once, dropped out of the sky in a plane crash, stabbed in the chest, shot in the head, nothing . . . nothing compared to this pain. And now it escalated even more.

Clint leveled the shot as well as he could. It never took him long to set the string, find his target, and fire. As he released the arrow, he tried to control his shaking body. Once the arrow cleared the rest, he couldn't stand the pain any longer and promptly collapsed against the gym floor. The pain intensified again; he was blind with it, he wanted to vomit. His entire body broke out into a hot sweat as if he was being electrocuted.

His eyes seemed to betray him. Whereas he was once crumbling to his knees in the archery range, now he awoke in the nightmare that took him over earlier.

The world floated around with ghosts and memories he couldn't place. Men in white coats, doctors who looked familiar, rushed around him in the bright white room. Someone called out instructions. The blips of a heart monitor turned into a buzzing racket. One of them stood over Clint's side, watching the monitor to his right. In his hand, he held a long black baton. The end cackled with the electric charge of a cattle prod.

The man's yellow eyes stared down at Clint. Someone yelled the archer's name and the cattle prod came down. Clint reeled back, screaming as the pain in his arm shot across his body. He struggled. He tried to fight it. He grabbed the closest man, but could feel only fabric.

"Get him back under!" someone shrieked.

A crash echoed through the room as someone ran into a medical cart. The heart rate monitor continued to spike. Clint fought against his binds until he felt the shock of something jamming into the side of his neck.

"Shock him again! Make sure he remembers it!"

The electric prod met his arm, yet again. Clint's breath caught in his throat as his body began to gyrate uncontrollably. His muscles tensed, his eyes rolled back, and his body began to arch.

"Nano-tech's making him sieze!"

"Hit the dampers! Send him back under! Pop him with more sedation!"

_:(:):(:):_

Clint awoke in a hailstorm of flailing arms and legs. He grabbed the closest thing to him, a shirt collar, and yanked it to the floor mat. He was being attacked. Someone had him held hostage and they were attacking him.

"Easy, Barton, easy! It's me! It's Bull, now, lemme go, gal-dangit!"

Clint came to his senses. He lay stretched out on the floor of the archery range, his throbbing arm wrapped against his abdomen as Bull leaned over him. He looked down and saw that he had the front of Bull's shirt in his fist. Clint slowly pried his palm open and released his friend.

Bull straightened. "Ya don't learn real good, do ya? Lucky ya didn't go fer my neck or I'da be on the floor like a carp right now."

"I'm sorry." Clint said, trying to get up. His head pounded with the pain-induced migraine. He felt light headed. "Bull, forgive me, I just...I just – "

"Ya just couldn't a stopped yerself. Ya, I know. An who's a one pickin' ya off the floor? Bull, 'ats who. Nah! Now, Boss, just rest there fer a spell. I'll get ya somethin'. Sit there an don't do nothin' stupid."

Bull stood with his gimping leg and hobbled over to the office.

Clint slowly eased himself into a sitting position. His eyes passed from the bow, sitting on the floor beside him, up to the target he was aiming for. He stared at it for a long time, wondering how in the world it was possible. He used a training bow. The arrows were as straight as if he'd made them with laser cut models. The fletches were in perfect order. Despite the overwhelming pain, he had fired the arrow like he always did.

**_He missed_**.

Bull returned with two Aspirins in one hand, and a bottled water under his arm. He handed over an ice pack first. Clint took it, but failed to make any good use of it. His eyes focused on the target. The arrow tip had bounced off of the tarp behind the targets, and skittered over three feet away. It wasn't even launched with enough force to imbed in the burlap.

"I missed." Clint said, flabbergasted.

:(:):(:):

Tony held the phone to his ear as he listened to the information Agent Coulson relayed. All the while, his face deteriorated from the, happy-to-hear-from-dead, Phil to its current intense focus. His eyes flicked over to Thor, and, at once, the Asgardian understood something had gone very wrong. He extracted himself from Tony's sofa and approached, hammer in hand. Pepper sat forward and muted the television.

"Gone?" Tony repeated to the speaker. "How do you know they are gone?"

He held a hand out to the approaching thunder-master and Thor stopped. Tony pressed the phone closer to his ear. "Phil, you're breaking up! How bad? When did this happen? Where are they now?"

Pepper's hand traveled up to her throat. She let the fingers trace along her collar bone as she worriedly waited for Tony to explain. It must have been something terrible. Her mind raced with scenarios involving those closest to their lives. Happy remained at the security booth downstairs. Bruce stopped by as early as yesterday to speak with Tony about his new physics class at Princeton. He had an apartment by the university, now. He would stay at the apartment three days out of the week while he taught, and returned to the Tower the rest of the time. Could something have happened to him? Natasha had yet to return from Brazil . . . Steve and Clint were together, surely nothing could have —

"Phil? Phil, say that—Phil, hang on! Say – " Tony cursed as he dropped the phone from his ear and checked the signal. He knew it to be futile. Phil and his team were somewhere in the Indian Ocean, and no doubt cell reception remained spotty at best. He slipped his phone into his pocket and looked at Pepper and Thor.

He spoke to Pepper first. "I need you to get Bruce on the line, tell him to get some things together. Phil has SHIELD coming by with a quinjet. Then give Romanov a call, if you can find her, and tell her she needs to get to the Helicarrier now."

Pepper's heart sank. "Clint and Steve?"

Tony didn't say at first. He turned his attention to Thor. "You can get to the Helicarrier before we can. Do it, see what they know so far that Phil can't find out. If it's something you can handle, if there is a way for you to get to them, then _don't_ wait for us."

"Of course, my friend. But what danger has befallen our brothers?" Thor asked. "Is it some mighty power we should prepare to defeat?"

Tony made a few gestures in the air, calling his suit to him. "Coulson's not sure. SHIELD asked the Cap to transport something to Mexico, but Phil doesn't know what. Apparently, Clint already turned in his SHIELD walking papers, but he went along with Cap to pilot him out."

"How long has it been?" Pepper asked, scanning for Bruce's number in her phone.

"Long enough." Tony replied, grimly. "Get Bruce. When we get to the Helicarrier, we'll track Clint's Asgardian bow with the same algorithm we used to track Loki's staff. I need him to help me calibrate it. Thor, you run now. Expect us a couple hours behind."

Thor set his jaw in determination. "Our friends will not long be lost to us. We shall redeem them back to our midst and face the fiends that hold them thus!"

The party split. Pepper hurried through the contacts with both Bruce and Natasha. Thankfully, she was able to get in touch with the latter. Tony rushed down to his lab, bits of his suit following down after him until he was fully assembled, stepping off the elevator. There weren't many things he needed to take with him, but if he had the time to wait for the SHIELD quinjet, he intended to spend it productively.

He attacked the work bench first, sliding parts of Clint's auricular devices into a spare case should his friend's transmitters need repair. Then, he hit the triage center for the trauma bag Bruce designed for Tony to carry with his suit. As he rushed around the lab grabbing the necessities, Phil's words haunted him.

_"If this is what I think it is . . . who I think it is . . . then Stark, this is going to be bad."_

"How bad?" Tony asked.

_"It's the stuff of ghouls and nightmares – Hawkeye's foulest nightmares."_

* * *

_Another fun fact: the pain i've emulated for Clint in this story is the worst thing that can happen to an archer (beside amputation) and its a pain i experience regularly. Archer's get a form of tennis elbow from continuous shooting and its radiated through the ulnar nerve (think about hitting your funny bone, about four thousand times in a row). Last spring I was training for an outdoor national competition and flared up my nerve, so I've been wearing a special band to try and correct the issue ever since. it hurts, it sucks, and it also makes two of your fingers go numb which is not fun for practicing surgery!  
_

_Next time: super long chapter ahead warning!_

_for now: please review!_


	6. Chapter 5

this is a FAST chapter update, but i'm just dying for you to read it! This chapter is really long, but you will thank me for it.

I fashioned the character Bull Weatherby off of a favorite Western actor who played a very similar character in the John Wayne classic, Rio Bravo. The name "Bull" was chosen from the carbon copy character used in the John Wayne follow up classic, Eldorado.

remember: in my Clint-verse he owns a wolf named Arrow given to him by Odin and Frigga, Clint is deaf, and he owns an Asgardian bow.

Holy crap, here we go!

* * *

Chapter 5

Clint cradled his pulsating arm across his abdomen. He wanted to check it for blood or powder burns. He knew no one had shot him but it felt no different. The shock of that missed shot, though, was more than he could reasonably tolerate.

"**_I missed!"_** Clint shouted.

"I know it, Barton." Bull said. He took the ice pack back and held it to the man's arm himself.

"I _never_ miss!"

"I know 'at too."

Barton pulled away from him and stood. The injury meant nothing now. He walked up the lane and inspected the target as if somehow it wasn't real. He took the arrow off the floor, inspected it, stabbed it into the target by hand and it stuck.

"_I never miss_!" Clint exclaimed.

"Ya sure as 'ell started missin' after what was done ta ya." Bull explained.

Clint turned on him, a feral savagery in his eyes. "_That doesn't make sense! _You're telling me that was ten years ago. _More_ than ten years ago. I should have trained. I _would_ have trained. I should be able to make a twenty five yard shot with a slingshot! A training bow is almost too easy! I don't care about the pain. I can deal with the pain. I should be able to hit this target and I can't."

"But if ya just listen to me fer a sec I'll tell ya—"

"No." Clint put his foot down. "Whatever it is I don't care. Honestly I don't care if I was in a coma for five years and learned to walk two days ago. I'd be shooting my bow from a wheelchair!"

Clint steamed. None of this made sense. He didn't quit things. Ever. He would have taught himself how to shoot again. Tony would have built him something, even if it was Iron Man mechanics. Clint would have chopped off his own arm and demanded a replacement. If Bruce could conquer time travel, he could have regrown him an arm from giraffe cells!

"I need to see Banner. Lock up the shop!"

"But!"

Clint fished his keys out of his pocket and took off. He didn't want to hear them. The stories of what he'd done, why he was a hero, why everyone wanted to meet him. He didn't want to know what other articles were waiting up on that shelf for him to sift through and he didn't want to hear the excuses. He'd had enough of that. What did it matter? What did any of this matter if he couldn't do the one thing that was his anchor in life? As he stormed out of the range, he looked at his old bow hanging lifelessly on the wall. It was like twisting a dagger in his chest.

He remote unlocked his car and climbed into the driver's seat. He knew Banner worked at Princeton and even if he couldn't remember how to drive there himself, he'd paid attention when Tony did. He wanted answers and Bruce was the one to give it to him straight with the entire scientist jumble to go with it. Clint extracted his cell phone from his pocket and dialed in Bruce's number. Surprisingly a machine picked up, instructing him he had the wrong number. Clint tried it again but received the same message. Maybe Bruce had changed the number? When was the last time Clint called him? He searched his call list and found Bruce's number in a 731 column. Had Bruce gone to California? Why did he have a California phone number?

Clint hit the call button, his questions mounting by the moment. This wasn't just a memory lapse. It couldn't be. He felt like his friends were keeping something from him. Why they would do it he couldn't grasp.

_"Hawk?"_ Bruce said.

"Bruce, are you at the school? I need to speak to you. I need to talk to you now. I'm freaking out."

_"Whoa—whoa, take a breath. What happened? Are the kids alright?"_ Bruce asked swiftly.

Clint turned onto the university drive. He must have been speeding the whole way, he hadn't expected on reaching the school so soon. "Kids? There at school, they're fine. It's me, Bruce I missed!"

_"Missed what?"_

"You're at the school right? I'm here. I'm pulling out behind the science building."

_"Hang on. Yes, I'm here. I'm coming out to meet you. Just stay there I'm coming to you. It's ok." _Bruce hung up.

Clint drove along the perimeter of the parking lot, having difficulty finding a spot among the countless students that had arrived for afternoon classes. Suddenly he remembered Natasha waiting with the kids. It was just passed four. He still had time before he had to run home. He needed to do this first. She would understand. It took him making two laps around the circular lot to see Bruce jogging out of the science building. He had his white coat on and lab goggles pushed to the top of his head. The concern on his face went unmasked. Clint drove alongside the walkway and leaned over to crack the door open for him as Bruce climbed into the passenger seat.

"You look awful, Clint, what happened?" Bruce asked instantly.

"I've got questions." Clint said.

"Ok, I'll answer them, you know that. Here, pull in over there. By that alley there. Yeah, it's staff parking. Just park it here. Ok, just turn the engine off and talk to me, Hawk."

Clint followed his direction, not knowing where else to go or what else he should do. He pulled his car along a red Dodge pickup and put it in park. He pushed his seat back from the steering column. His hand was shaking.

"Oh—Clint let me look at your arm!" Bruce leaned over, carefully pulling Clint's right arm away from his chest. The joint was red, swollen, and looked as if someone had taken a mallet to it.

"I needed to shoot, Bruce." Clint told him. "I _need_ to shoot. I did it. I did everything I could, I sucked it up and I shot and I missed."

"Oh Clint." Bruce whispered, looking at the limb.

"Tell me why I can't. I don't understand why. And if I could suck it up and just do it, why did I miss?"

Bruce pulled away from him. He hunched down in his seat with a hand over his eyes. The emotion washed over his face. Clint would be surprised if he didn't suddenly Hulk out with all the stress he'd brought to his good friend's front door.

"Don't do it." Clint said.

Bruce lifted his hand away and stared at him. "Do what, Clint?"

"Don't Hulk out. I love the big guy, but I need Bruce right now."

Bruce shook his head repeatedly. "No, no, Clint, you know that. You know I can't do that anymore. You were there. You were with me when we cured it. Wasn't that what you and Steve found in Mexico? Cancun? You remember, Clint, and you brought it back to Tony and me in the lab. It was a cure. Natasha was with you."

"A cure?" Clint asked.

"Yes, a cure. You knew that. The Hulk, your hearing, we cured both of them. Please, let's not go through this again."

"My hearing?" That took a long time for Clint to come to terms with. How could he possibly forget that he was deaf? He traced his ear with his finger, searching out the pinhead transmitters that linked to his skull implant. Nothing. They weren't there. If they were gone, then how could he possibly be sitting there listening to Bruce's voice? Or anyone's? More inconsistencies filtered in. Why was his Asgardian bow hanging on the wall and didn't appear in his hand? Where did his dire wolf, the offspring of Freki and Geri, go? Why wasn't the wolf beside him now? Just what the Hell was going on?

"It wasn't a cure." Clint replied. He _knew_ that. "No, it wasn't Cancun either, but Puerto Salina. Steve and I went, not Natasha."

Bruce nodded deftly. "Steve, of course."

"It was the 0-8-4." Clint said. "Not a cure."

Bruce sighed, leaning against the door. "Clint I don't know what you're talking about. What 0-8-4?"

"The Puerto Salina base. That's what I was there for. Steve too. We transported an 0-8-4. I couldn't remember the input code. It took a while to get in. I think it might have been "_Thursday_" but it's hard to remember."

Now Bruce seemed to perk up. " "_Thursday_"? The code was "_Thursday_"?"

Clint looked exacerbated, pulled to the end of his rope and desperate for answers no one could give him. "Bruce why are we talking about this? I want to know about my arm. I want to shoot. Where is my wolf, Arrow? How did we even get here?"

"It's all connected, Clint." Bruce told him.

"What?"

Bruce leaned over the center column. A cold, deadened gaze held on to Clint's. His voice did not waver. His entire demeanor changed into something strange, different. Suddenly Clint felt frightened of him. Bruce whispered to him in a strange, foreign voice.

"Clint, you need to tell them. If you do, this will all stop. But if you don't, we are going to make it much, much worse."

:(:):(:):

Clint could feel the movement around him. Men in white coats rushing left and right with the blip-blip-blip of the racing monitor. He felt like he was diving. Dry scratching air rushed across his mouth and nose as he inhaled. The sweet scented flavor of it seemed familiar. And then it occurred to him: anesthesia. He tried to force his eyes to open but something across his eyelashes pulled and ripped at his delicate skin. Had someone taped them down?

"He's coming out of it _again_." Someone said.

"Well what do you expect, I'm not an anesthetist! I'm working off a ten-year-old drug book."

"He said "_Puerto Salina_", did you get that?" asked the first.

"I wrote it down. We'll start the aerial sweeps. Could _"Thursday"_ be the unlock code?" the second replied

"Give him a bigger dose. I want him out."

Clint's eyes rolled beneath his lids as he tried to identify the voices. They were familiar, people he'd come in contact with before but he couldn't place them. The sweet smelling air blew into his nose faster. He coughed and turned his head to try and dislodge the mask on his face.

"We've upped his dose twelve times in the last four hours. He's reached dependence state. Are we doing a hard withdrawal?"

"I don't care what you do to him. I need that serum! We're running out of time. Put him under. Send him back to the house."

"But, Mr. Barton—"

"Send him to the house!" the man screamed.

The voices became fainter as Clint fell backwards into himself. His mind darkened like shadows crawling across his eyes. He breathed faster, heart racing in his chest. His world behind his eyes exploded in light and color and suddenly he was back in his bed. He shot up from beneath the covers, rousing Natasha beside him. Clint pulled the blankets away from himself. He tried to catch his breath, but couldn't. He felt like someone's hands circled his throat and slowly squeezed down. He coughed, tried to inhale, his arm pain disappeared. Natasha knelt behind him with her arms wrapped across his chest.

"Calm down." She soothed.

Clint leaned back against her. His heart galloped in his chest. Had he run a mile in his sleep? Did a hoard of zombies chase him across the night and he just awoke safe in his bed? Or had someone really stood over him, that drug in their hand, as they crept closer and closer . . . ? He tried desperately to unwind his body but lost the battle. The more he tried to relax, the more his excited mind jumped. It felt like adrenaline. The feeling shot through his veins, flushing his face, making him hot and cold as it got worse and his heart threatened to pound right out of his rib cage.

"It's ok. Listen to my voice, I'm right here."She continued to whisper.

"What happened to Bruce?" Clint forced out. "Tash, how did I get here? I was at the school, I was talking to Bruce, how did I get here?"

"Don't worry just calm down. Bruce brought you back here after you went up to the hospital."

"Hospital?!"

She replied evenly in order to level out his rising panic. "He said you were shooting. You came to him freaked out, worried, he wasn't sure what he should do. You haven't been this way in a long time, Clint. The doctor's gave you something to relax. You were asleep until just now."

Clint rubbed a hand across his eyebrows. "Relax?" he repeated. He stood from the bed, pushing the hand down the back of his neck. The clock read three in the morning. He went to Bruce at 4pm the night before. How could he have lost that much time?

"I think I'm losing my mind." Clint said, terrified. He continued to hyperventilate despite willing his body back under his own control. Was this a panic attack? What did a panic attack even feel like? "I can't calm down."

"You aren't losing your mind. This is just a rough patch." Natasha said, keeping her voice low.

"Some rough patch!" Clint spat back. He paced, still massaging his neck. He wanted something to hold on to, something to focus his attention so he might center himself. This feeling reminded him of a distant memory in his past. Benadryl, he realized. Unlike most humans who took the anti-allergy drug and fell to sleep, when he touched the stuff he became an unwound bundle of racing nerves and pounding heart beats. Had he been drugged? In his bed beside Natasha? That didn't add up either but it did remind him of something.

"Where's Arrow?" Clint asked.

Natasha's look fell. "Arrow . . . Arrow died, Clint."

A knife cut through the pounding in his chest. His wolf, his best friend, how did he ever forget losing him? "Dead?"

"Deathlock—"

Clint turned away from her, not wanting to relive whatever gory details waited for him in that story. He tried to focus on the pictures around him. The ones that reflected the life he tried and failed to remember. On his dresser the photos of Aaron and Philip in their football jerseys sat in their frames. The curtains blowing in the wind from the open window both shrouded and revealed his wedding day. Beneath Clint's feet the hardwood flooring felt cool.

Clint stopped pacing.

"Keep your voice down, you'll wake them." Natasha admonished. She smiled sadly at him, the perfect good wife, even at three in the morning. "Just come back to bed. Everything is just as it should be."

Clint flicked his eyes to the dresser. The pictures of his children were different. They had been playing baseball, hadn't they? The positions were the same. Their faces the same. But the jersey had changed almost miraculously. He looked down at the floor. He remembered carpet. Then he remembered tile. The first he rubbed his toes into as he climbed out of bed, the second was cold. He'd put on a pair of socks because of it. Now it changed to hardwood. The walls . . . the wall color had changed! Now a soft beige, it had been lavender once. He _knew_ it was! Time getting lost, coming and going without knowing how, memory loss, the world changing without rhyme or reason, missing the target . . . Clint came to the realization as his heart plummeted into his belly.

He missed. He never missed. Only in his nightmares did he ever miss.

Clint didn't look at the woman on his bed. She couldn't be real. None of it was real. He had been trapped in an inception-like world and hadn't understood the full depth of that until now. He didn't want to miss this, not just yet. Leaving the woman on the bed, Clint walked out of the room to see his children. He pushed open their door. Natasha's ghost followed behind him.

"Don't wake them up," she whispered.

"I won't." Clint whispered back. He just wanted to see them, hold them one more time before all of this faded away. He leaned first over Aaron's bed. He brushed the boy's hair back, planting a kiss on the side of his forehead. He then turned to the bed parallel to the first. Philip buried his face into his pillow. Clint looked down on him. He could see the perfect blend of Natasha and him in the little face. He leaned over and kissed the boy's cheek, pulling the covers over the child's shoulders.

Could he just leave well enough alone? Could he continue to live in this dream fantasy and never wake up? Wasn't he happy here even if he never fired another arrow? But then the memories came back. The flashes of reality he initially discounted. Steve strapped to a chair, screaming for Clint to come back to himself. The doctor with the cattle prod. Clint being experimented on. The stark white room. The aseptic smell. The sweet mix of anesthesia as the needles came down. In no way could he take this lying down.

Despite their not being real, Clint didn't want to have the argument with dream Natasha in front of the boys. Maybe he had gone crazy if he agreed to such strange thoughts. He made a small motion for Natasha to lead him out and as he left, he pulled the door closed behind him. Standing in the hallway to argue didn't make much sense either, so he moved out into the kitchen. With his eyes opened now to the truth of this dream world, he picked up on the little objects he'd ignored for so long.

The calendar on the fridge was placed perfectly. It not only showed him some form of stability for the past couple days, but what became expected of him for the coming few also. The kitchen, he realized, reminded him of his old home, way back in time when he had a home in Iowa. Most of the articles were placed in the same areas, making it easy for him to navigate. The layout of the house resembled his childhood also. Mr. Rivendell, he realized, was his old neighbor from those days. Clint had even been his paper boy every morning running the paper from mail box to front door.

"This is all very clever." Clint said, twirling his finger in the air.

Natasha gave him a curious look. "What are you talking about?"

"Who are you working for?" Clint demanded.

"Clint—"

Barton picked up one of the stools and tossed it across the room. Natasha staggered back in shock, a hand flying up to her mouth as it sailed passed her and destroyed the front window. She screamed his name as the sound reverberated loud enough to reach the child's rooms.

"Daddy!" the boys cried out into the darkness.

"Clint what are you doing?!" Natasha demanded, terrified. "What's gotten into you? Listen to me, this is just—"

"A lapse?" Clint demanded, picking up the second stool. He held it in his hands, threatening to shatter the second window with it. "Just say it. I want to hear you lie one more time before I fold you in half."

"Clint!"

"Daddy! Daddy, stop!"

The boys' room up the hall pulled open. Little Aaron and Phil peaked out, their faces wet in terrified tears. Aaron held desperately to his Captain America plastic shield while Phil's nerf bow poised ready for attack. They cried out for their father to stop. They pleaded desperately with him. Clint struggled within himself to hold tight to that thin strand of reality he had left. Like waking from a dream, he could see daylight crashing toward him if he could only reach up and snatch the curtain down. But hearing the desperate cries of his children threatened to shatter those walls.

"It's ok, kids. Go back to sleep, it's ok. Daddy's fine." Clint told them lovingly.

Natasha must have seen the determination in him. The innocent child look in her eyes faded and whoever tugged the strings on his dream world exposed himself. Natasha took the second stool from him and knocked it over lazily.

"Well, I enjoyed it while this lasted." She said. "Though I am disappointed we could not obtain more information from you. I believe this is a fantastic example of our use of alternative interrogation methods for agents of your caliber."

Clint straightened as she spoke. He approached her, but she made no move to escape him. He wondered if in his attempted to kill her, whether he would injury his captor or not. He thought trying it must be worth any repercussions. Clint struck. He grabbed the apparition and what was once a solid form became little more than a ghost. He stared into the empty air, but not for long. In the blink of an eye the home vanished, replaced by the glaring white lab of his nightmare. Clint jumped up but heavy straps over his chest, head, neck, and lap made sure he could not leave his chair. Clint's arms were extended out of the straight jacket and braced out on either side. He thrashed against the binds, pulling at the lines of electrodes, fluids, and monitors attached from his fingers to his upper chest. He growled as he struggled, his one leg seemed to loosen and he concentrated on getting that free first.

A sliding glass door before him rolled away on mechanical gyros. Three white coated men filed in. The first of them set instantly to securing the one leg Clint managed to loosen. The other two broke off on opposite sides of Clint's upper body. Without a doctor's gentle touch they began ripping the catheters and electrodes from him.

"Puerto Salina?" One asked Clint as he worked. "And the code you said was _"Thursday"_? I think we got that down, right."

Clint squeezed his eyes shut and reopened them to try and bring the faces into focus. He was awake, more than ever before, but he felt the ethereal effects of whatever drugs they had him on working against his thoughts. Not receiving his answer in a timely manner, the doctor grabbed Clint's chin and steadied the archer until their eyes focused on one another. Clint tried to bite him. One of the other doctors laughed as the first, Clint decided to call him Four-eyes, slapped the agent across the face. He took the blow willingly enough. There was nothing he could do to defend himself.

"Agent Barton." Another called his attention. He was the tallest of the three with sharp black eyes and slicked back auburn hair. Instantly Clint decided he didn't like him. This man he named Gutter.

"You know my name." Clint stated. His mouth felt dry. The words garbled.

"We know much about you, including that fact that your human body is much more receptive to the memory therapy than Captain Rogers. Now that is a man with a high metabolic rate."

Clint tugged at the binds on his arm again. He could reach the tail of the strap closest to his hand. He pulled at it with his pinkies until he wrapped three fingers on it. "Cap always was a little precocious."

"I'd love to get into his head but you see the drugs just didn't hit him the way they hit you." Gutter grabbed a wheeled office chair from a work station on his right. The man straddled it backwards and stacked his hands on the backrest. He stared eye-to-eye at his captive.

"I know someone I'd like to try and hit." Clint replied.

Gutter put a hand on his chest, roughly in the same place a normal human being would harbor a heart. What Gutter had there instead, Clint would like to find out once he got his knife back. "You got me, right here. Those two, innocent, little boys crying out for their daddy. Screaming for you to save them. The way you tucked in those kids and said goodbye? It was a real tear jerker. We were passing hankies."

Clint didn't let the words get to him. It surprised him how they were able to see that intimately into his thoughts. What else were they capable of?

"But, all things must come to an end. You were our test. We knew we couldn't break you. A Level Six SHIELD agent like yourself? Oh, forgive me. Ex-SHIELD agent. You are nothing but an Avenger now aren't you? An Avenger with a very important Asgardian weapon that none of us could recreate the exact feel of. You understand why it was imperative we never let you fire the thing? Not possible. We knew we had to play smarter ball." Gutter opened his arms to display the technology around them. "The latest in nano tech. A fully computer integrated dream sequence. I swear it's like something straight out of Total Recall. They are designing it for kids with night terrors or some crap like that. But you know what they are missing out on?"

Clint grinned. "Opportunities to enroll in the mad scientist fair?"

"Vision." Gutter said. "With this test I have proven that I can create a fully self-actualized reality in which the operator, that would be me, can completely manipulate the dream scape of the individual subject. That would be you. Sure you wouldn't discuss your mission with us but Dr. Banner? Stark?" the man smiled devilishly. "Your wife? Those are conversations we can get information from and did."

"I'd like to see you put any of that to real use." Clint barked back. "So what? So you know there's a SHIELD base in Puerto Salina? Big whoop. Any Level 3 agent could tell you that. Hell, TMZ probably did a profile on it just for kicks. You want a door code? What did I tell you it was? Thursday, right? That's my fall back code for every mission. I'd like to watch you punch it in and see how that goes. I don't know what you expected to get out of me but looks like your big experiment just gave me a nice vacation."

Gutter motioned to the third man. With the pure skin-only dome of his, Clint decided to dub him Professor X. Professor X retrieved an out-of-place crowbar from the table of medical equipment and handed it to Gutter. Clint now knew who was in charge.

The archer eased his neck to the left as much as the restraints would allow. "You know I got this kink in my neck. You mind sorting that out for me?"

Gutter smiled in a way that turned Clint's empty stomach inside out. He stood and moved to Clint's right side. He inserted the metal in the non-existent space between Clint's arm and the straps of his restraints. The sharp edge shaved off layers of skin as it went. With the crowbar as a fulcrum, he began to twist the strap like a corkscrew. Clint yelped. He bit his tongue and dug his nails into the boards his arms were tied too.

Gutter stopped at a single twist "Now, our game wasn't entirely fruitless. I do know what you fear most. And it wasn't being in a coma, or not walking, or losing your memory, it wasn't even finding out your entire world was just made up! It was losing your bow arm. Funny the priorities we make in life."

With Professor X's help, the crowbar rotated again. The strap began to fray, but Clint knew it would hold out longer than the bones in his forearm could. As they completed the second rotation, as he screamed and writhed to pull out of their grip, the air was cut by the unmistakable _POP_ of a bone snapping. The archer gulped air, sinking back as a new pain enveloped him. Four-Eyes apparently didn't have the stomach for such blatant torture. He turned away to vomit in a trashcan.

"Now, there is one thing that's going to make this stop," Gutter shouted over the retching doctor and Clint's gasping breaths. "I want the log in code for the Puerto base!"

Clint slouched in the chair. He'd stopped trying to pull away, it was only hurting him more. He worked his right hand along the strap to get it free. Despite the new broken bone, his body reacted less dramatically than he expected. Whatever sedatives they kept him on must have been dulling the pain. He had to take advantage of that while it was still available in his system.

"Ok!" Clint exclaimed. "Ok, please, I'll tell you. Just stop. Please, just stop."

"Tell me the code!"

"Fine. Ok, fine. You got a pen? Write it down. You have to write it down exactly how I say it, understand?" Clint panted, leaning his head against the leather keeping it in place. When X prepared with a paper and pen, he spelled it out for them, one letter at a time. "G. O. S. U. C. K. M. Y.—" Clint was unable to finish his statement before Gutter set to breaking his radius along with his ulna. The small vessels beneath his skin burst, creating pools of blood in deep purple hues around the centers of his abuse. There was a second snap, louder than the first and the agent went blind from it.

The sliding door opened for a second time. A man in a black business suit and red tie with Armani wing tip shoes stood watching the torture. He sighed and waved Gutter over with a flap of his hand. He removed his sun glasses and placed them in his front breast pocket.

"I'm guessing this is that experiment of yours crumbling?" The slick man, Clint decided to call him Gatsby, asked. He looked familiar, most likely someone Clint fought in the past though he couldn't exactly place him.

"Just a setback." Gutter deferred.

"Well put this fish back in the tank and get top side. We've uncovered something about the GH serum. We need to move now. He doesn't have time to wait for this anymore" Gatsby turned and headed out the way he'd come. Gutter was right on his heels, shouting orders to the others as he went out.

Clint gasped in relief as the crowbar tension let up. Four Eyes grabbed a black hood and draped it over Clint's face. It was the last thing he saw of the white room. He'd been strapped to a wheelchair making it effortless to take him from the room and move him without allowing him to get free. Clint attempted to slip his broken right arm out of the weakened arm strap, but it was useless with his swelling wrist still tied down independently. He noted the turns. Four lefts and three rights. An elevator. He felt the elevator descend and counted by adding the word Mississippi to the tail of each number. 53 Mississippis later they stopped. He could hear the door open and he was pushed out. Another two lefts and they stopped.

"Hit the gas." Four Eyes said.

The air filled with the sound of air moving through pipes. Something on the other side of a steel door began to pound on the wall. Clint couldn't distinguish a voice. He began to count again. Four hundred and ten Mississippis later he heard a wheel turn, like the entry to a submarine door. The chair moved forward and stopped. Clint remembered the smell. Anesthetic gas. Clint rolled into the chamber and stopped.

"Give him another hit." Four-Eyes said. "And hurry it up."

"His veins are like crap. We just hit him ten minutes ago." X complained.

"Just stick it in his thigh."

"Will that over dose him?"

"What's it matter? Get the other one."

Clint rocked in his chair, trying and failing to squirm away from the slew of needles that inserted in his left thigh. The muscle beneath burned as if he'd been hit with a clothing iron. He couldn't feel the syringes pull out.

"What did you just do? What are you giving me?!" Clint demanded. Neither answered him.

He tried to start counting as his hands worked at the tails of the straps. Whatever drug high he enjoyed was going to wear off very soon and he had to escape before then. He had no idea what they'd given him now, but if it was a sedative, then he had even less time to break out. He could hear the heavy wheel door pull shut and lock into place. Clint was left alone. His focus on the tail of his right arm shackle was so intense he lost count of the time.

"Clint?"

The archer stiffened at the voice. It had been quiet for so long, he forgot about the man pounding on the cell door from the inside. "Who's there?" he demanded.

"Hang on, let me get you. Here."

The hood removed from his eyes and suddenly Clint stared up at Steve Rogers.

"Steve! Quick, get me out of this!"Clint exclaimed.

Steve didn't need any coercion and as they worked in tandem. Both desperately tried to catch up with each other.

"When did you get out?" Steve asked, working on Clint's ankles while Clint's free arm released his trapped one.

"A few minutes ago I came to. What's with evil scientists? And trolling around in my brain? Steve, I thought you were back in the 40s."

Steve nodded. "I know. I watched some of it until they realized I was getting myself free. I think I broke someone's jaw. How's that arm?"

"Broken in two places at the least." Clint replied. He was free at last. Wanting as far from the chair as possible he grabbed Steve's collar to pull himself up. His legs collapsed under his weight but the Captain held him. He gingerly touched the front of his leg. It still felt like he'd been branded. "They just hit me with something, I don't know what."

"They've been pumping you full of God-knows-what every few hours while I was around. How do you feel?"

"For now? Doped. I don't know how long it will take whatever they just gave me to kick in. How long was I out?"

Steve adjusted Clint over his shoulders and began to walk. He wanted to make sure Clint wouldn't throw a blood clot from being immobilized. "Five days at least. You kept coming around. I tried to get to you, but you were so confused I don't think you understood what I said. You're bleeding."

"Catheters. Should stop eventually." Clint explained, trying to get his feet to move in rhythm with Steve. There were four bleeding holes on his arms where the lines of drugs had once been. They had yet to stop bleeding out. "Five days? Nothing from SHIELD? The Avengers?"

"No rescue that I know of, and Agent Garret should have reported us missing when we didn't show up for the scheduled pick up four days ago."

"They said something about nano tech swimming around in my brain or something so I really have no idea what's happening. Is that gas I smell?"

"This room is sealed. When they need to get in and out they gas me down. Once I'm unconscious they do what they need to and go. They are on four-ish hour shifts. The window opens, they look in, and they go. Last shift of the day they gas the room, place a container of water, and go."

"I can get us out." Clint said. "I remember the way up, back to the white room. There is a way out of wherever we are from there. I can get us back to the white room at least."

"I saw a staircase that went straight up. The door was open the last time they brought me by. I heard seagulls top side. We aren't that far down, but we are underground." Steve added. "What about the men you woke up to? What did they say?"

"They want the 0-8-4." Clint replied grimly. He shook his head. "What did Fury have us transporting?"

"I don't know. I've been trying to think of anything strange. The Guest House got demolished, I get that. Whatever they had there seemed worth the explosions meant to bury it."

"Only it didn't stay buried." Clint said. He pulled up short, and Steve stopped pacing him around the small bunker room. "I heard the sharp-dressed man, I call him Gatsby, say GH serum. Does that mean anything to you?"

"No. But it's funny I called him Gatsby too. Clint, call your bow." Steve said.

A moment after the thought entered his mind, Clint's Asgardian bow was in his left hand. He set it on the floor as they walked. Steve needed no explanation for wanting the weapon around. Besides the obvious defensive qualities, it had an inherent Asgardian signature. If the Avengers were out there looking for them, they may just be able to trace their location via the bow.

"I think you and me are spending too much time together to both come up with the codename Gatsby. Besides Guest House, GH doesn't mean anything to me either. It got them all hot and bothered though. They know about Puerto Salina, but they don't know about the guy with the fish and the umbrella on Thursday morning."

Steve nodded subtly. It wasn't the most elaborate code in the world but he knew what Clint was talking about. They were most likely being monitored. Someone upstairs hoped that putting them together would get them to talk. Steve tapped Clint's ribs twice with the palm of his hand to show he understood. "Do they know about Friday?"

"Not unless you told him. The dog was down the road when we went up. Green and black." Clint continued. Everything they spoke now could be filtered for a thousand years and still be discounted as the gibberish it was. They would continue this incessant conspirator conversation as Steve walked him in circles for the next few hours until the first check in arrived. Or at least that was the plan. He could tell from Clint's behavior that his friend still suffered the effects of some kind of drug in his system. What exactly that meant, he couldn't imagine. Over time Clint began to deteriorate as the effects of some medications wore off and the latest ones kicked in. He couldn't keep walking.

Steve had seen some of the concerning signs early on; the dilated eyes and the lack of reaction to the break in his arm. Clint's walk had a peculiar stagger that no matter how many times they went around never got better. In fact, the longer they walked, the worse Clint became. Though they were speaking gibberish to begin with, Clint descended to a level that began to frighten Steve. He spoke about men Steve had never met and children Clint did not have. He wanted to know who was minding his shooting range, and if Aaron and Phil had the proper jelly sandwiches.

The soldier eased him down to the floor where Clint started shaking. After the shaking came the vomiting. The archer didn't have anything but bile in his stomach, but that didn't stop his body from trying. Then the pain kicked in. The broken, swollen arm, the wallop to his jaw, in less than an hour he had gone from walking and discussing escape routes to a quaking mass. Then Clint would stop talking, freeze in place, muscles taught and jaw clenched as his eyes rolled back. The seizure never became more violent than that, but it still frightened Steve to watch.

"Do you know what they had you on?" Steve asked. Clint shook his head no, but it was difficult to see through the rocking of his body. So the captain stayed beside him, unable to go or do anything else.

* * *

I love the massive review i had over what could possibly happened next. I laughed for joy, there were some great guesses in there.

I hope you whump-o-holics loved this chapter. I sure do!

And I passed all my finals! Yay! 1/2 a veterinarian now!

Pleas please don't forget to review!


	7. Chapter 6

Hi all! so updates will be a bit more on the sporadic side as I have returned to the US of A for summer externships.

Thank you to all the fantastic reviewers! It really makes my day brighter to see such loyal followers! As most of you know I have updated all of my stories to show their new linear line up. Over time each of the stories will be updated and certain situations/chapters altered so that its like reading one massive epic.

for now, enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

Chapter 6

Clint could hear the boot steps of men approaching. His head swam with the effects of the drugs. He'd spent nearly the entire hour trying to vomit, but unable to. His brain felt like it had swollen to twice its size. He was sweating, freezing, and shaking, despite Steve's attempts to warm him up. The ever patient Captain stayed by him, though, working his hands raw as he rubbed life back into Clint's chest and back. Despite Clint's cold coming internally, the friction seemed to help.

The seizures hit him like strikes from a sledgehammer. Every muscle tensed as his breath froze in his chest. From some distant place, Steve's words attempted to soothe him back to life, but Clint's dying, oxygen deprived brain cells didn't assist matters. When one ended, the exhaustion and confusion took over. Through his daze he heard the first foreign sound.

"Someone . . ." Clint chattered. "Coming."

"I hear them." Steve said.

"Gotta st—stop. Get out."

"They're going to gas us. Change the water out. Remove your chair most likely."

"Gotta get out." Clint forced out.

"I don't see how that's going to happen." Steve replied. "I've tried finding a corner and burying my face, but they gas long enough so that you can't possibly hold your breath for all of it."

"My shirt. Ball it. Cover face." Clint rotated his upper body, Steve helped him remove it.

"A filter!"

"Get the bucket."

Steve rushed to the corner. He tossed the remainder of the dank water across the stone floor and returned to Clint's side. At the archer's direction, Steve removed his own tight knit top. It was meant to be waterproof. As he'd been shown in his army days, Steve tied the long sleeves closed and blew air into them. The footsteps were much closer. He had to hurry. Understanding Clint's plan, Steve fed his shirt over the bucket, creating a seal. The only thing that remained open was his collar. He placed his fist around it to keep the private supply of oxygen inside. He placed Clint's folded top over his mouth and nose. After five days of wear and tear, the smell of both their clothes had enough pungency in it to curl the hair on a skunk.

"Only breathe if you . . . Don't—"

Steve pulled Clint away from the wall and laid his teammate down. He didn't want the sudden loss of consciousness rolling Clint over onto his broken arm. The archer began to stiffen again before gasping for air, as if he was attempting to fight off the new seizure before it took him over. Steve rolled him onto his side should he begin to vomit. Steve looked toward the door. He knew they didn't have a lot of time, but Steve didn't want to leave Clint like this.

"I've got it. I'm getting us out of here." The Captain said.

The archer grabbed him by the wrist. "Right. Right. Elevator. 53 Mississippi's straight up. Left. Left. Left. Right. Right. Right. Right."

"Got it." Steve assured. The hissing began. The pungent smell of the gas arrived and Steve rolled to his side beside Clint's body. With his mouth and nose covered by his teammate's shirt and the rest of him beneath Clint's back, Steve waited for the door to open.

:(:):(:):

He saw them again. Natasha's arm extended over her head with the torched black apron around her waist. She was standing on the porch like a picture straight out of Better Homes and Gardens. Her ruby red lips pursed as she waited, frozen in place, for his car door to open. The kids were scrambling out of the back seat before Clint could even put the car in park. Little Aaron and Phil rushed the porch, arms, backpacks, lunch boxes all flying in whirlwinds behind them. As Clint opened his driver's door he nearly ran into the raven haired Isabelle. He turned to see Tony parked on the street laughing.

_"Bella! Bella!"_

Clint grabbed the girl as she raced by. Her little legs kicked and she screamed in pure childlike joy. Like a fireman, Clint threw her over his shoulder, listening to her declarations of "Uncle Hawkeye! Uncle Hawkeye!" punctuate her pleasure.

The boys flung themselves at their mother. Tony and Clint mounted the porch together. This was home. This was right. This was everything in the world Clint ever wanted.

And it was all a lie.

As he dreamed the pleasant dreams of a life he never lived, Steve set to their immediate rescue. He waited, like any good soldier would, until the time was perfect. The plan had worked for the most part. Even as the gas evacuated from their container, he worked against the mental buzz slowing his movements. He inhaled the free oxygen stored in the bucket. The door popped open with the hiss of a broken seal, and the two scientists stumbled over to check the test subjects. With his eyes relaxed in open crescents, Steve could see their intent. Two syringes, all empty until they extracted the glass bottles from their coat pockets to fill them. He knew none of them were for him.

They dragged the anesthetized Clint, by his broken arm, away from Steve. With him flat, they inspected his catheter sites.

"Geez, he made a mess in this corner. Smells like acid."

"I told you we probably overdosed him."

"Vid feed showed him seizing again."

"Nano tech isn't happy."

"These veins are crap. Should we try the jugular?"

"Would you want to shoot crack in your jugular?" After considering it, he shrugged. "Yeah, I guess the boss don't care which way. Aren't his veins. Just put the ketamine in his thigh. Take his shoes off, I'll try the top of his foot with this other one. If not, we'll just put it in his eye."

Steve waited, breathing slowly and evenly as he prepared to run. He could feel the anesthesia that did get into his system ebbing away now. Soon, he would be able to strike and trust his movements. A high metabolic rate was definitely a blessing.

There, no one waited outside the door, and there were only the two to deal with. Something was shoved down Clint's throat. What that could be, Steve couldn't see. As one prepped the first injection, tapping the bubble from the syringe, the other began working at Clint's boots.

Steve struck; He flipped to his feet, using one leg to come across and kick the first man beneath the sternum. With a whoosh of air, the scientist crumbled over backwards. The first man had shoved the needle into Clint's thigh, depressing the plunger. Steve yanked it out, and thrust it sideways into the man's neck. He extinguished whatever was left of the drug into the man's system. As the first moaned and coughed to catch his breath, Steve kicked into the side of his head. He punched the first in two quick moves, and suddenly the world went quiet again.

The Captain searched their pockets, yanking his hand back from one as his fingers brushed the crushed glass of two vials. He recognized the words Cocaine and Ketamine on the fractured labels. In another pocket, he found the third drug. It was in tablet form, with the label reading Phencyclidine. A hand written note beneath the word renamed it as PCP. Steve had vague knowledge of the drugs. Not enough to inform him of their effects, but enough to know distinctly that Clint was in big trouble if they kept pumping him full of them. With the bottles in hand, he wrapped them in Clint's shirt, then his own, and tied the long sleeves around his waist.

Lastly, he picked Clint up in his arms. He remembered the way back up to the white room. They were going to get out of here, hopefully before Clint stirred and whatever medication they had gotten into him began to work. He didn't worry about the bow, Clint could summon it back to himself the same way Thor managed his hammer.

Two rights. There was someone standing in front of the elevator. Steve waited in the shadows. After three minutes of the man not leaving, he had to do something. So he called to him. The man walked over, and Steve dropped him with a single punch.

Elevator! It was already waiting for him. He walked on, tearing down the camera in the corner. 53 Mississippi's straight up. Steve started counting. One Mississippi . . . two Mississippi . . . the final stop was roughly 53.

The alarm sounded like a warning klaxon on a Navy Destroyer. Perhaps the guard had woken up, or the scientists were discovered with the open room. Either way, Steve knew he had to move faster.

The doors opened and Steve barreled out. There was a man standing there, but the Captain had already grabbed him by the back of his neck and flung him into the elevator before punching the number downward.

Three lefts. Steve was almost running now. He would peer around a corner, clear it, run forward. See another hall, empty. He ran again. Four rights. He felt like a mouse traveling in larger and larger circles. At the farthest extent, the very last turn, he found the White Room. The staircase was directly in front of him. In a moment of uncharacteristic reservation, Steve smashed through the glass window of the White Room, and snatched his shield off a wall. There was no way he was leaving this place with that left behind.

Steve ran for it. Why there weren't more people down below in the halls, he couldn't worry about. After five days of pounding a doorway, he was out, and he needed to get Clint to SHIELD medical. The klaxon continued to blare in his hypersensitive ears. The flashing white and red warning lights rotated along the dimly lit hallways like headlamps on a squad car.

They were so close to the surface now. Steve's hand held onto the rail, propelling himself forward when the first explosion hit. He was thrown backward, just managing to shift Clint enough that the man hit his back off the cement floor and not his skull. The hatch leading upward was destroyed. Unfiltered white sunlight poured in from the outside, adding a clandestine illumination to the man on the stairs. The Iron Man, that is.

"If I knew we were playing skins, I would have left my suit at home." Tony quipped, indicating both Clint and Steve's bare chested looks.

The second explosion cracked the floor beneath them, crushing the base walls against each other. Steve scrambled to his feet, dragging Clint with him.

Steve clung to Tony's back, sandwiching Clint between them as Stark hit his repulsers. "Enough with the small talk! Get us out of here!"

"One pick up, ready for delivery!"

:(:):(:):

The Tower was full of children from Isabelle's school. The little girl went running by, her hair in pig tails trailing from either side of her head. A comical party hat sat between them. It was her sixth birthday. Clint's boys were in the pool, Natasha laid out on one of the pool chairs in her bikini as she watched them. Just one look down her smooth body, one would never have thought she carried twins before.

Pepper wore a hula skirt and coconut bra. Isabelle raced up to her, and they danced a Lilo and Stitch sway together. More little girls approached in their own grass skirts to join in. Bull was propped up to their left with a Ukulele, playing them all a tune.

Tony leaned into Clint's shoulder, depositing a beer in his hand. "Our girls aren't too bad." He said.

"No, they aren't." Clint said.

Aaron and Philip shot out of the pool with scoops of water, which were then promptly dumped on Natasha's bare stomach. She jumped up in place and chased after them, knocking both into the pool again with roundhouse kicks to their sides. Clint and Tony laughed. If anyone could effectively beat their children without actually ever hurting them, it was Natasha Romanov. Clint twisted his wedding ring around his finger. He supposed it wasn't quite right to call her Romanov anymore.

"It's weird thinking of her as Mrs. Barton."

"Tell me about it." Bruce said. He came up behind them with a tray of triangular peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He set them down on the top of Tony's bar. "And Pepper's friend, Sam's, giving me the hot girl look."

Tony and Clint twisted around to locate Sam. Her hands worked to tie a long balloon into the shape of an inflatable dog. The young boy she did it for was remarkably similar in features, her son more than likely.

"Hear tell she gives excellent massages." Clint said, knocking back some of his beer. At the peculiar taste, he held it away for a moment and read the label.

"Yeah, it's non-alcoholic. So sue me." Tony said. "It is three p.m., and a lot of parents getting drunk around a swimming pool full of kids had Pepper a little edgy."

Clint shrugged and drank anyway. "Hey, doesn't matter to me one way or the other; you being responsible is what's eating me."

Natasha jogged over. Though she'd been running laps around the pool chasing after, and potentially drowning the boys, she looked no more breathless than when she was laid out absorbing her September tan. She picked up one of the sandwich wedges and munched away.

"So, you ask Sam out yet?" she proposed to Banner.

Bruce's face reddened.

Bull began a new tune on the Ukulele, and all of the children began to sing and dance in excited little circles. Grass skirts twirled in the dwindling summer air as music, laughing, and conversation lit the uppermost floor of Stark Tower.

The beauty of the scene was difficult to surpass, and for the years to come, Clint would try desperately to forget the overpowering bliss he experienced at that exact moment. It was the moment before his life cracked, and the beautiful false memories turned to bile in his mouth. This was his drug induced nightmare – and nightmares were never without their boogeymen.

When a child screams from glee, the sound is infectious and beautiful. When they scream from fear, the sound is not only heard, it is felt like a visceral jab into the very marrow of the human body. The screams came in conjunction with the _pop-pop-pop_ of the weapon. Clint felt Tony pull away from him. The Iron Man raced for the little raven haired child, but he was too late to save her. Red mixed with black as her small body collapsed against his. Tony's back buckled under the subsequent bullets slamming into him.

Clint stood still, watching as the scene, that had began in joy, turn straight to death. Natasha ran for the boys, but they were already gone, floating in a dead man's pose with their heads faced downward and the pool dyed red. Natasha slammed face first into the edge of the pool, the bullets stopping her heart before she could join the children. Banner pushed Clint off balance as he collapsed in a spray of arterial blood.

When the archer looked up to the doorway, a single form emerged from the shadows of the private elevator. His shield was in one hand, the gun in the other; Captain America. The muzzle flashed, and Clint watched as the final bullet flew straight for him.

Not real!

He knew it wasn't real. His body fought him, telling him to leave that world, to get out of the rabbit hole before it consumed him. None of this dreamscape could ever be his reality. But how desperately he wanted it. Steve tried to save him, tried to pull Clint out of himself. But was that really what the archer wanted? Was there no way for him to stay in this world forever?

"No." he whispered to the real world ringing around his hospital bed. "Take me back! Take me back!"

A hand touched the side of his face. His eyes were pried apart and a foreign light went from one pupil to the next.

"Why do they look like that?" someone asked.

"The medication. Makes the pupils dilate."

"He's on more drugs now?!"

"Relax. It's for the withdrawal and the broken arm. He's going to still be out of it until we can get his system filtered. They had him on some nasty meds, Tony. Did you see the tox report?"

Clint groaned. He moved his face to the right, hiding himself in the edge of a pillow. He could hear the flurry of movement over his head, and suddenly everyone spoke to him, not just around him.

"Clint? Clint, open your eyes! Look at us, can you hear us?"

"Hawk, come on, let me see your ugly mug!"

Clint readjusted to appease them. He opened his eyes willingly. The two speakers were Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. Had they survived the gun attack? Where was Steve? Half of his mind told him he was crazy, and the other half reminded Clint of the vivid memory he'd just experienced. He wasn't sure what to believe anymore.

"Where's Aaron? Where's Phil? I want my kids." Clint whispered.

Tony and Bruce exchanged mystified looks. Bruce answered for them.

"Clint, you don't have any kids. You're here. We brought you to the Helicarrier."

Clint nodded, taking note of the surroundings and the SHIELD medical logo on the door. "Are they back home?" he asked. "With Natasha?"

Tony said. "Clint, you don't have any kids. If you did, I would know."

Bruce took over, hoping logic would pull Clint out of his confusion. "You've been out for half an hour. You were at AIM. Steve got you out, then Tony flew you here. Doc's just finished getting your tox report, and they're waiting for your radiographs to show how bad that arm is."

"Steve got me out? That's – That's not right. . ."

"Technically, right now, you are higher than anyone else on the Helicarrier." Tony added.

"I lost my wedding ring! Tony, did I give it to you? I have to find it, Tash will kill me! Bruce, do you have it?" Clint exclaimed, flexing his left hand. He tried to sit up as he patted the hospital bed down in search of the stray article. Both of the Avengers rocked forward to keep him laying down.

Before either had a chance to refute his claims to a marriage, their group of three was interrupted by a fourth. Steve walked in, having changed his clothes from the squalor he'd lived in for the past five days. He initially smiled; seeing Clint conscious again gave him some hope the Avenger would be all right. But the rage he was met with was unlike any emotion they had expected. Barton launched up, screaming as his arm reminded him of the double break. Tony and Bruce hurriedly grabbed him before he barreled right out of bed. He was strong, shockingly strong.

Clint roared at the Captain. "YOU KILLED THEM! HOW COULD YOU? HOW COULD YOU? YOU SON OF A-!"

"Steve, get a medic in here!" Bruce shouted.

Clint continued to scream and struggle. His two friends held him down as the drug-induced psychosis overran his mind. He beat his feet against the end of the bed, dislodging his medical records which spilled across the floor. Behind Tony's back, his hand found a metal fluid line hook. He grabbed it, hurling the object across the room to shatter against a glass wall. His broken arm caught Bruce across the face and the doctor found himself sprawled on the floor.

"LET ME GO! HE KILLED THEM! HE KILLED ALL OF THEM! LET ME GO!" Clint screamed.

As suddenly as Steve ran out, he was replaced by Thor who ran in. He dropped Mjlonir by the doorway and overtook Bruce's place. His Asgardian strength grabbed Clint around the chest in a bear hug.

"Ease yourself, my friend!" Thor commanded.

With Thor to rely on, Tony let go. He was sweating and panting, and as he touched a hand to the back of his head, he realized he was also bleeding. Clint had managed to hit him good with a closed fist. The attending physician appeared with three nurses. Steve came back as well, but he remained in the doorway.

Tony helped Bruce to his feet. "You all right?"

Bruce nodded, going to Clint's side to assist the nurse in getting the lines taped back down on his body. At everyone's request, Thor did not let go.

"TASHA!" Clint bawled. "GET OFF! GET THE HELL OFF!"

"It's the PCP." The doctor announced, working around Clint's manic movements. "Psychosis. It'll pass. Might be a few hours. Kathy, get me those five point buckles, he's getting strapped down."

Clint's head flung backward and up, directly into Thor's nose. As strong as he was, even the Asgardian was stunned by the blow. His grip slackened, and, again, Clint managed to nearly vault straight out of bed.

Now, Steve sprang into action, which was precisely what the archer waited for. Clint fought against him like a man possessed. With Thor's help, Steve just barely succeeded in getting Clint flat on his back. It took the strength of both the super soldier and Thor to nail him down, but it wasn't without cost. Clint's foot caught Steve in the ribs. If he didn't know any better, Clint had probably cracked three of them. With his nose bleeding down his face, Thor received a chop to his throat, which took his breath away and made it difficult to get back. Not only was Clint an assassin coming out of a horrible nightmare, he was a trained assassin high on PCP, morphine, and crack cocaine. The combination gave him an inhuman strength that rivaled either of his strongest companions.

Bruce and Tony grabbed Clint by his ankles and stretched him out while the nurses worked the restraints over him. The archer bucked like a wild bronco. For his troubles, Tony received his own kick to the face, leaving him seeing stars. He fell backwards and didn't get back up.

"Tony, you alive down there?" Bruce called down. He threw his weight across the archer's legs to keep him down. The nurse got the first leg secured, but he had difficulty with the second one.

Tony's unconscious state made him unable to respond.

The nurse fought the guide needle for the catheter into Clint's hand. The minute she managed to get the tube in, his blood began leaking out. But that wasn't the only thing that flowed across her gloved hand. The woman screamed, shaking her hand as the miniscule mechanical insects crawled out of Clint's blood droplets and up her arm. Bruce tried to grab her and to save the strange mechanisms, but it was too late. In her terror, she had smashed them against her arm.

Bruce exchanged a horrified look with the physician. "Am I hallucinating, or did metal bugs just crawl out of Clint's veins?"

"Nano tech." Steve said, grunting against the fingernails Clint dug into his Adam's apple. "Pumped . . . him full of it."

A second nurse approached with a fluid line in hand. He began connecting it to the still bleeding IV port.

"Tell me what's in that line!" the doctor ordered before the fluids could be reconnected.

"It's the opioid infusion for the cocaine withdrawal." The nurse responded.

The look on the doctor's face could have stopped traffic. He looked down at Clint, who was still spitting, biting, bucking mad and shouting all manners of words he would no doubt regret when his mind sorted out.

"Don't tell me you've been feeding a patient, who has overdosed on PCP, morphine!" the doctor's voice was louder than Clint's, which, at the moment, was a considerable feat.

The nurse looked as if he could curl up into himself and die. "But, for the ketamine – "

"Get out!" The doctor ordered. He pointed to Bruce, who was heaving after finally letting go of Clint's legs. "Dr. Banner, I need those reversals! Cabinet, left side, blue and green labels!"

Bruce went for the drug cabinet. He couldn't believe this happened. Not only was Clint psychotic, he was going to stay that way as long as the morphine stuck in his system. The trouble with reversing morphine? Done incorrectly, Clint's broken arm would be the most painful experience in his life, and there would be no amount of medication to make him not feel it. As Clint attempted to bite off Thor's triceps, Bruce and the doctor tag teamed his sedation.

Thor slowly stood and backed away, now that Clint was properly restrained. He sweated just as much as all the others. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, surprised at the trail of blood he came away with. The Asgardian walked over to the shattered wall and dropped down until he sat by the still unconscious Tony Stark. Steve limped over, holding his ribs. His eye was turning black from a flying elbow he caught, matching the circle of red teeth marks in the back of Thor's arm. He eased himself down between Tony and Thor.

They sat in their line and watched as the doctors worked, Clint cursed, Thor's nose bled, Tony slept, and Steve wheezed through damaged lungs. Unanimously, they decided that when Clint found his senses at last, he was never allowed near radioactive spiders or gamma radiation. If this intensity of strength could be granted by PCP, they couldn't imagine what he would be like with the advantage of inhuman strength forever.

* * *

sooooo many feels!

hope you loved it! (oh, little side note, I know all these drug combinations in relations to vet med only. I extrapolate they do approximately the same thing in humans, but i have no first hand experience. any nurses/doctors out there feel free to correct me!:)

please review!


	8. Chapter 7

here's the latest! if you didn't see the news on my other stories, i am slowly updating new versions. I've gotten as far as Romanov's Roulette with plans to do the rest hopefully before the summer is out.

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Chapter 7

Clint shifted in his bed. The cast on his arm itched horribly. He rubbed the outside as if it would somehow dull the ache but it wasn't much use. He felt as if he hadn't slept in three weeks, but he knew he'd actually been sedated for the better part of five or six days. All of his muscles ached, which he couldn't quite understand. It wasn't as if he had a chance to run five miles in the desert carrying a hundred pound pack. He was surprised when he first woke up that no one stood around him. He had expected to see Tony at the least. Even Steve. But there was no one. He tried to sit up in bed, but a belt across his chest prevented it.

Well crap.

Clint looked around again. Everything had the appearance of a SHIELD medical facility, from the emblems on the wall, to the equipment he'd seen his fair share of. One glass wall had been smashed through and replaced with a white tape X. There were no nurses, no doctors, and no Avengers. He knew better than to trust his surroundings. He'd been strapped down, again, and he was not about to stay there and wait for some guy in a lab coat to come by and pump him full of drugs. Apparently, whoever did the tie job this time didn't know him well enough to make sure his hands didn't touch. This would be a simple escape. The straps on his wrists came off first, followed closely by his chest. Before he reached his first ankle, an unfamiliar figure entered the room holding a medical file.

"Stay back! Stay back or I swear I will put you through a wall!" Clint snarled at him.

The startled man's hands flew skyward. "You're awake!" he exclaimed.

"Yeah, I am." He finished with his ankles and tore his way out of bed through the ever present, ever painful catheters in his arms and hands. He stood, approaching the man and grabbed him by the throat in a tight headlock. The stunned nurse didn't even think to run.

Clint had a few options now that he woke. Either he was back in the nightmare, a world where Steve Rogers murdered everyone that he loved and enjoy it, or he was still being held hostage by the Gatsby gang. A third possibility remained that SHIELD and the Avengers found him after the hostage crisis. Why it took this long, he couldn't say, but at least he was safe. To discover which reality he currently resided in, he had to track down some answers.

"You have a cell phone?" Clint demanded, squeezing the nurse's trachea.

"Yes, sir, I do." He said. He attempted to fish it from the pocket of his white coat, but Clint squeezed his neck sideways and he stopped.

Clint reached down himself and took the phone out. He forced the man's unlock code out of him and punched in Tony Stark's cell phone number. The digits were very important. He remembered Bruce's strange canceled number and the California area code that replaced it. Clint shoved the man forward down the hall, keeping the phone on speaker to have his hands free. The place definitely looked like the Helicarrier, but Clint was not about to trust that yet. If he reached the bridge and Director Fury stood there, then he had more of a chance at believing it all. He reflexively felt for the wedding ring on his left hand. It was missing. Wasn't that right? He wasn't supposed to have one, was he?

Tony's cell phone rang four times before someone answered. The voice came through groggily. "Who's this? I want to know the name of the guy who is going to die."

"Tony, it's Clint." The archer explained hurriedly.

Tony didn't respond at first. Instead, Clint was surprised a second time over when the infirmary room door ahead of them slid open and Thor came into the hall. Tony Stark shoved the Asgardian out of the way.

"Clint, what are you doing?!" Tony exclaimed, hanging up his phone. "Geez, let the poor nurse go! What did he try to do? Give you an enema? Just let him go."

Clint looked at the nurse who could not look back. Thor took a few steps toward Clint, but with the archer's swift backpedal, he stopped. His grip tightened on the nurse, a bold refusal to ever let go.

"OK, let's just all relax for a second." Tony said. He looked into the infirmary room at someone, made a motion for them to stay put, and returned his attention to Clint.

"Who's in there?" Clint commanded.

Tony waved the comment off, walking half a step toward him. "It's nothing. Take a yoga breath. Are you with me right now? Look at me, Clint, focus on me, OK?"

The archer struggled to do just that.

Thor asked. "Do you believe the Captain has murdered your guiltless, fictitious offspring, my brother?"

"Right now, Thor, I'll admit I'm a little confused." Clint felt for his wedding ring again, already knowing it wasn't there. He took another step away from them to make up for the step Tony gained. He darted a glance backward, but so far no one came up on him from behind.

"Should we explain some things to you?" Tony asked.

"You better start saying something."

Tony again glanced at the man in the infirmary and made a curt motion with his hand.

Barton's eyes shifted toward the open door. "Who is in there?!"

The billionaire raised a hand toward him again to calm Clint's agitation. "It's Steve. Ok? That's who it is. It's Steve. You managed to crack his ribs earlier and split my skull, so forgive me, Clint, if I'm a little slow on the uptake. You broke Thor's nose too."

The archer looked from one to the other. They definitely appeared worse for wear. He didn't remember doing any of it and, faced with the evidence, had a hard time deciding what he believed. He remembered being angry, throwing something. And he remembered the birthday party painted in red. It was Steve's fault. As Clint memories intensified, he squeezed the nurse tighter.

A flurry of footsteps came behind him with Bruce's voice letting out a string of uncharacteristic curses. Clint pressed his back against the wall to watch either side.

"Stay back!" Clint ordered. "Come any closer and I'll cut this man down, I swear I will."

Bruce's hands flew up in supplication. There were men with him. Men Clint didn't know, wearing white lab coats with no doubt objects in their pockets with which to silence him. One of them was bald, another wore glasses. He couldn't decide if they were the same captors from before but slowly pieces dropped in the disagreeable column. They pulled up short of reaching him.

With the distraction of their approach, Thor took his own silent steps forward until Clint caught him. He was now playing a game of red light green light on two sides. The archer twisted the nurse's head in his grasp and produced a satisfied yelp from the man. That got everyone to stop.

Tony reclaimed his sole attention "Bruce, stick back. Hawk, look at me now. I told you I would explain myself and I am. You've been on drugs for five days. Heavy drugs. On top of that, Steve said you mentioned something about nano tech. You haven't been stable enough for us to look into that. You've been delusional and literally insane. Does any of this ring a bell now?"

Subtly, the archer nodded.

"We got you back on board four hours ago. Some idiot screwed up your meds and you went PCP crazy. We sedated you until you came out of it. Looks like you're out of it."

"I want my bow." Clint said.

"Your arm is broken in not just two places, but three. You can't—"

"DON'T TELL ME I CAN'T!" As Clint shouted, both fronts converged on him but were repelled by the scream of a male nurse whose head was slowly being removed from the rest of his body. The line of men pushed back again. Up the hall from them Steve carefully poked his head into the hall. He hated having to wait, doing nothing as the others tried to talk Clint down.

"You want this man returned to you alive, then I want a bow. One bow, one arrow, one shot. If you want me to believe all of this is real, that's what I want." Clint's eyes begged Tony's. The desperation flickered like the light of a dying candle. "I need this, Tony. Please. It's the one thing I can hold to."

"Hawk – "

Clint's head spun toward Bruce.

The doctor held his hands out as, one small step at a time, he approached. "Hawk, listen to me. You've been through a lot. I get it, but believe me when I say I can't let you do that. You physically – "

Having nothing else on him, nothing left in him, Clint tossed the technician's cell phone toward the gaggle of doctors. They spread out to avoid the flying parts. "Don't tell me that, Bruce! Not that! I can and I will. One shot, it's all I want. Please. I'm begging now, please!"

Bruce's eyes turned to Tony and Thor. Steve stepped out of the doorway a little more. They were at a stalemate. Either they were going to dart Clint down like a water buffalo, or they were going to hand him his most skilled weapon and see what happened.

"One shot." Tony agreed.

Clint nodded. "Just one. If this is real, if all of this is real, then I'll cooperate. I swear to that. If not, then you better run because I will not stop until you kill me or I take this Helicarrier out of the sky."

Tony tapped Thor's arm, indicating he should go past Clint and join Bruce's side of the standoff. "You don't need to do that. We're going first. You can walk behind us. One shot. If you want to shoot with your cast on, I'm not going to stop you. None of us are going to stop you. Steve, get out here and get over with Bruce."

Eager to do anything, Steve removed from the doorway. He walked with his chest slightly hunched as if Clint's thank you gift of broken ribs actually happened. Clint watched him with a deadly glare. If this was still the dream world, Steve was the first man he planned to take out, even if he had to drop the entire Helicarrier on top of him.

Tony took up the back of the pack. Once he was a sufficient distance away, Clint marched his kidnap victim forward. If the layout of this Helicarrier was the same as the real one, Clint expected to go down one level and walk to the right rear shooting range. It was dual purpose for archery and weaponry, SHIELD didn't have separate ranges given the limited number of archers the organization employed.

Faceless workers passed them occasionally. The forward group acted like a huddle of bouncers, clearing the way to prevent Clint being overtaken by mistake. It was obvious the doctors didn't approve of his request to fire a weapon only a few hours after they reset his bone, but their opinion held little weight at this point. Before Clint knew it, they were standing in the weapons range. Twelve agents were kicked off the firing line to make room for Clint and his sole hostage, but this time they did not leave. Weapons drew on all sides. If he decided that this world was not part of reality, he wouldn't have the chance to injure anyone before the agents gunned him down where he stood.

Clint knew that didn't matter. He'd already been killed once in this dreamscape by Steve. Dying again by this way wouldn't bother him in the least. There were no training bows here. He never needed them. Tony was kind enough to place his arrow on the booth in front of him. His quiver remained in Stark's hands. Despite being best friends, Tony knew better than to trust the archer not to change his standard tip out for an explosive one.

For the first time, Clint released his captive. At his instruction, the nurse sat Indian style nearly on top of Clint's feet. There were still fifty three ways the trained assassin could kill him, and none of them required the use of a weapon.

With the room full of gun-drawn agents, the four Avengers, doctors, and nurses all watching closely, Clint summoned his bow to his left hand. He tested flexing his right arm back without the string being pulled. He didn't have very good motion range with the cast covering his hand and arm. He couldn't use a finger tab. He had to do this straight by the bare fingers.

Giving himself at least some handicap, he slipped a finger sling over his left bow hand. He took the arrow, set it on the nocking point, and closed his left eye as he took aim on the target. He started high, pointing the sight at the top of the ceiling, before dropping the sight and bow down in a single fluid motion. He pulled the string back, squeezed his shoulders together, and inhaled. The world held its breath with him.

As he dropped the bow into the target sight, he paused. Pulling the string hurt. If his friends were to be believed, that he had actually broken three bones in his arms, then the level of pain matched that exactly. It felt different than the pain before. He could only imagine that there was not someone standing over him this time with a cattle prod. To be sure, he had to take the shot.

With the string beneath his chin and his bare fingers held beside the arrow, Clint slowly released. He wasn't wearing his arm guards. The string grazed the inside of his elbow as it went by. He knew it would bruise. The arrow launched forward. It rocketed through the air and a satisfying _thwap_ echoed in the arena. The black silhouette man had an arrow sticking perfectly out of the center of his forehead. Clint dropped his bow in the booth. He was shaking again, but this time in relief. He tapped the nurse's back with his cast.

"Go on, get out of here." Clint whispered.

The nurse took Hawkeye's advice and ran for it.

Tony could tell the danger passed. He handed Clint's quiver to Steve and slowly approached his friend. The agents slowly lowered their weapons. Stark set a hand on the back of his friend's arm and leaned in so he wasn't overheard.

"It's us. I give you my word on that."

Clint swallowed. His legs began to feel stiff. "Yeah – I..."

Tony grabbed Clint by his arm and waist when his teammate tried to fall right over. "Hey, hang on! Grab on to me. Baywatch, get over here!"

Clint allowed Tony to force him upright. He was so relieved he couldn't be bothered with trying to walk for himself. Gently, though cautiously, Thor approached and took over Tony's spot.

"Find out what you needed?" Bruce asked. He looked both angry and relieved.

"Couldn't shoot. I missed." Clint tried to explain. "I never miss. Not in real life. Only in my nightmares do I ever miss."

"Mind if we get you back into bed now?" Bruce asked. It wasn't really a question. Thor intended to drag Clint there, whether he wanted to go or not. Clint looked up at his Asgardian friend's mangled nose and the rims of black beneath both eyes. Apparently a few hours weren't enough for his healing factors to fix the malady.

"I'm sorry."

"Fear not, my friend. All will be well with time." Thor assured him.

Clint said. "It's been a confusing few days."

Bruce rolled his eyes. "No crap."

"Don't sedate me again."

"You sure? I think right now the doctors are drawing straws as to who exactly gets to do that."

Clint reached out, grabbing Bruce's shoulder with his good hand. "Look, every time I wake up, I don't know where I am. I don't know if it's real or not. I know _this_ is real now. You knock me out and I'm just going to have to go through this all over again."

Bruce had slowed down to listen. At Clint's genuine plea, he agreed to the conditions. "You behave yourself, then fine. We won't sedate you. But Clint, you've got to stop pulling out your catheters. It took us an hour just to place in one, then you ripped it out on us. Twice. Pretty soon you're going to have track marks like a twelve year heroin addict."

"Deal."

They returned to Clint's infirmary. The archer managed to stay on his feet, leaning on Thor while the technicians removed his bed straps. He'd had enough of being tied up lately. If he continued to behave, he wouldn't need them.

Clint indicated the shattered window. "Was that my fault?"

"Your mind was full of demons." Thor told him. "Their hauntings forced you to perform in a way that was unaccustomed to your character."

"I feel like they're still in there." Clint sighed. He unashamedly laid his head on Thor's arm. He was feeling suddenly very tired.

"Then we shall set to remove these beasts and reclaim you as our own."

Clint returned to his bed, watching the doctors with a steely glare. He felt as if at any moment they may decide to pounce on him. Even with Bruce mad at him over the catheters, he preferred an angry Bruce Banner to those strangers any day.

Tony dragged a chair over from the next room and plopped down into it. He'd also managed to scare up an ice pack. Thor looked down at his friend's chair longingly while Steve remained just out of Clint's line of sight in the corner to his left. Bruce worked on Clint's left as well, feeling around what remained of the patient's veins. None of them were particularly promising. The skin had puffed up in leaking bruises and hematomas.

"You can tell Steve I won't kill him." Clint whispered to Bruce.

The scowl on Bruce's face broke for a moment. He had been bent over, staring intently through his glasses in his attempt to scare up a vein on the back of Clint's hand. He looked up a little. "What?"

Clint flicked his eyes to the corner where Steve hid from him. "I couldn't get past it. He killed... It wasn't him, I mean. When I passed out, I dreamed about all of us. We were at Belle's birthday party. You know what? It doesn't matter now." Clint turned away. Watching Bruce slide a needle under his skin turned his stomach.

Bruce missed the curling, miniscule vein on the first attempt. He removed the catheter and tried again. While he worked, he directed his voice behind him into the corner. "You can stop hiding, Steve, Clint promises not to break your face."

Steve edged out of his hiding place. "You sure, Clint?"

The archer raised his eyebrow. "Am I sure I'm not going to stab you in the eye with the –OW! Bruce, geez!—yes, I'm sure."

"Stop moving!" Bruce warned.

"Stop trying to skewer me!"

Bruce looked up over the brim of his glasses. His voice was low and even, a remarkable change from the rage no doubt boiling beneath his veneer exterior. "Do I need to strap you down again?"

Clint mumbled a, "No."

"Good."

Thor had left briefly on an apparent search for his own seat. When he returned, it seemed the search proved fruitless for a single chair, so instead he pushed an entire leather couch through the broken window into the infirmary room. Steve hurried over to help him. They set the couch down, to the utter chagrin of the medical staff. Tony snickered.

Bruce succeeded in getting the lines back attached. He took the fluid bag from the doctor and hooked it back to the crooked line tree Clint had thrown through the window only a few hours before. The archer slowly became more stable, and at least they had the opportunity to better direct his care by speaking to him.

"I want to ask you a few questions if you are willing right now." The head physician asked.

"I guess that depends. Who are you?" Clint shot back, surprisingly hostile.

Bruce let out an exacerbated sigh. He retreated to the procured couch and shoved himself between Thor and Steve. If Clint was going to turn up his I'm-the-worst-patient-you-will-have-ever-faced routine, Bruce was not going to stand and be the doctor's buffer.

The physician tried to smile, but the effort was forced at best. "My name is Dr. Elbert. I've been seeing to you since they brought you in. Now would you mind answering what I have to ask?"

Clint didn't offer a smart response. He considered it, but the small panging ring in his brain reminded him he wasn't 100% enough to really bust the guy's brass. This made it safe for Dr. Elbert to go on.

"You mentioned nano tech, do you know what that means?"

Clint closed his eyes, trying to remember what exactly the man he called Gutter said to him. He'd been surviving in a fog for so long now it was difficult to sort through it. His stiff legs began to bother him. If he didn't know any better it seemed to be getting worse, traveling higher up. "He said, _'the latest in nano tech. A fully computer integrated dream sequence'. _Apparently created for someone with night terrors. Redesigned. I'm a Level Six agent. Normal interrogation procedures weren't effective."

Elbert looked over to the peanut gallery. "Does that make any sense to you, Mr. Stark?"

Tony tilted his head left and right as he thought. "There's a biochemical engineer by the name of Hank Pym. Bruce you know him, right?"

Bruce indicated he did. "The bug guy."

"He's re-purposed the diagnostic nanotechnology typically used for endoscopic exams, shrunk them to less than a quarter of the size, and retrofitted them with enhanced neurosystemic stimulators for kids with narcoleptic or epileptic disorders. One of his understudies was an oneirologist and multimodel domain building I'm sure isn't beyond that scope."

The archer moaned and rolled onto his side. He clenched his left hand, trying to ease the tension in his fingers. His stomach began to clench.

Steve cupped his chin in his palm. "Tony, would you mind sparing a little English for us laymen."

"I think I'm losing some brain cells here." Clint moaned. He attempted to rub his eyes with his casted right hand. He began to wonder if Bruce had fed something into his fluids . . . again. He swallowed, but a bitter taste remained in the back of his mouth. It tasted like a mouth full of pennies.

Bruce explained. "Dr. Pym was using nano tech to alter brain activity. A scientist working with him could very likely have altered the work to what Clint experienced."

Clint coughed, swallowed, and tried to keep up with conversation. "So you're saying my brain is infected with little metal bugs?" His eyes had taken on a vaguely glassy quality as the pupils expanded. "Fun."

Tony's head slouched toward Bruce. "Did you sedate him?"

"Actually I didn't, though I really wanted to. Doc?"

Elbert turned Clint's face toward himself. He tested a few of the archer's reflexes, all of which were delayed. "Dr. Banner I think we're seeing an early onset of that nano tech. We should get him into the brain scanner while we have the opportunity."

Bruce extracted from the couch. Knowing the occurrence from earlier, he double checked the fluid line again to be sure nothing untoward had been added to it when he wasn't looking. At Elbert's direction, he examined Clint for himself. The archer's mentation had dulled. The once fiery tempered Clint was reduced to a ghost of his former self. The contrast was so striking, Thor and Steve were driven to their feet.

Clint's breathing slowed as he had difficulty keeping his eyes open and head erect. Working together, Banner and Elbert managed to lay him down. Clint's arms slowly crossed his chest unconsciously. His left wristed folded back and stiffened as he breathed deeper and slower.

"Bruce?" Tony asked, leaning forward. "Why isn't he talking?"

Bruce ignored him, throwing a look over his shoulder at Steve. "Did you see this before?"

At the direction of Dr. Elbert, one of the extra men left to prep the brain scan. Bruce and Elbert began prepping Clint to move. Tony stood also.

Steve nodded. "I thought maybe it was the meds. He was brought back to the cell. He said they injected him with something but neither of us knew what that was. I was walking him around. After a while, whatever it was kicked in and he started to go down. His eyes looked the same then. He would go stiff, eyes rolled back, I think it was a seizure."

"His heart rate's dropping, Doc, do you want to intubate him?" Bruce asked. He reached into one of the side drawers for the emergency crash kit.

"His oxygen levels are stable for now. Set it next to him in case he crashes on the way."

Clint mumbled through his disorientation. "Not crash. Not. Hey, Tony?"

Tony approached on Clint's right side. "I'm right here. Keep talking, Hawk boy, you hear me?"

Clint reached up and grabbed Tony's shirt collar, dragging him down to his level. "You just gotta do it."

"Do what?"

"She's been there. You got a great little girl together. Just put a ring on the woman, would you?"

Tony's face reddened. Clint might have been talking crazy again, but when he wanted to hit the nail on the head, he still could. Tony was rescued from his awkward fumbling of an answer by Clint's sudden loss of consciousness. The agent's body arched, the heart monitor spiked and Tony was shoved away in Elbert's search through the crash kit. Bruce pulled Clint's pillow from beneath his head and kept him still while the archer seized.

"He's aspirating, we've got to roll him!" Bruce exclaimed.

Elbert and he worked in tandem to get Clint adjusted onto his side. The other three Avengers moved out of the way as the med staff worked. The technician returned, announcing the brain scan was prepped and ready.

"Bruce, Lorazepam. We can't scan him like this, he's stopped breathing."

"Can we get an airway?"

"His jaw's clenched tight. We need to stop the seizure or else I'm traching him. Nurse, get me a scalpel and sterile set."

"Pushing Lorazepam."

"All right, everyone just hang on and relax a second. Let the meds work."

"He's tachycardic."

"I see it. Lorazapam in?"

"In. Blood pressure's through the roof."

"It'll come back down. Get ready with that tube. The minute the Lorazapam hits him, he's going to stop breathing."

Unable to watch any longer, Tony slid out the door. He rubbed the back of his head where Clint had provided him with five new staples. He couldn't just stand there and watch the doctor's work. He was useless to do anything himself. He didn't see what use there was in torturing himself any longer. Steve and Thor followed out behind him.

"Tony?" Steve asked, attempting to catch up with him.

Stark continued to march, unwilling to be within hearing distance of the chaos of the exam room. "I'm not watching that. I'm going to the lab. I've got to figure out a way to get those things out of his head. I'm calling Hank."

* * *

coming up: what will the others do when they realize just what Clint had done to him?

Oh, technical note: Jeremy Renner as many know is a Left-handed archer, though I have written Hawkeye in his original comic form as right handed. Just a technicality some may have noticed, but I do it as it is the style i am most familiar with.

please review!


	9. Chapter 8

at long last! Here is the next installment! Oh and those that recognized Hank Pym's name, you are correct! He is the Ant Man (or Bruce's Bug Guy as he likes to say).

* * *

Chapter 8

"Popcorn, Tony, really? Don't you have a little restraint?"

"No, I don't."

"May I partake of this explosive treat?"

"Will all of you shut up while I get this thing working?"

The Avengers sat on the acquired couch arranged in Clint's infirmary. Tony remained the exception, reclining instead in his procured chair with his sneaker clad feet propped up on Clint's bed. The archer had yet to wake after the last three hours of blood filtration, not unlike undergoing dialysis. After his seizure was brought under control and he was sent to the brain scan, the team connected the information transcontinentally to Dr. Pym's lab. Approximately ten thousands nano bots were floating in and out of the archer's blood brain barrier. Over a thousand had already begun to malfunction, setting off periodic short circuits that triggered the first seizure. It was Dr. Pym's suggestion to remove them immediately, not that Tony needed any convincing in that department.

They were fortunate the nano technology had the same fail safes that made Pym's work renown. Using the doctor's specific magnetic resonance attached to a blood filtration system, they were able to collect and extract the miniature machines. But the discoveries did not end there. Not only had they been manually controlled, they were also set to record and recreate images in the visual cortex like a high definition movie implanted directly into an individual's brain. With Pym's further assistance, Bruce was able to unlock the data storage centers. Now the team had the opportunity to see exactly what it was Clint experienced.

Bruce swiped his hand across the holo table and transported the images from the table to the far wall. The lights were already turned low, Tony had popped a bowl of popcorn, and Bruce reclaimed his seat between Thor and Steve.

Thor worked through a handful of the "explosive treat" but hardly consumed three pieces before dropping them back in the bowl with a sour look on his face. As willingly as he ate anything, finding popcorn to be substandard for his unrefined palate was a surprise to everyone.

"More for me." Tony replied, eating another handful at a time.

The images remained sharp at first, and then turned grainy as the nano bots were extracted from a sort of gel media. The face of a white-coated scientist's eyeball came into view first before zooming out to take in the totality of his face.

"Sharp." Steve told them. "I don't know what Clint called him, but that was my name for him. That's Four-Eyes and Bald. Sharp is the head of the three from what I saw. He called all the shots. Four-Eyes did most of the injections."

"Sharp's familiar." Bruce said. The view rotated to display the impossibly white exam room. Clint's unconscious body was tied to a chair between Four-Eyes and Bald. Bruce's stomach clenched, seeing Clint sitting there like that, knowing full well what came next. His arms were stretched to either side and encased in tubes, electrodes, and unfamiliar monitors.

"Four-Eyes is Frank Ross. He applied for a job in R&D six months ago. I turned him down since he had the grave misfortune of being, you know, insane." Tony said.

"Looks like AIM found a niche for him." Steve said.

There was no audio. The three doctors gestured to each other as the image focused in and out, then shifted haphazardly around the room. After a few minutes of adjustments, the audio came through. The image blurred as the nano bot was replaced in a viscous media.

_"Prepped?"_

"That's Sharp's voice." Steve said.

_"Yes, sir. First dose going in."_

"That would be Frank." Tony said.

The image swirled around in the viscous media. It was like watching the footage of a water park ride in first person. The image cut in and out until the screen went fully black. Bruce looked down at his hand held tablet system. He zoomed forward in the footage until the first images reappeared.

"We'll have to review this later," he said. "In case we can hear them talking in the background."

Tony agreed. "I want to send the footage to Pym. He might be able to help us with that equipment. Where it can be found, who bought it last, or had the ability to reproduce it."

The blank image was replaced by a red shade. Bruce stopped fast-forwarding and they watched through Clint's eyes as his delusions replayed out along the wall. The archer rolled over in his foreign bed to see Natasha beside him. The wedding ring was on his finger. A few moments later the two children came bouncing in, excited for their first day of the new school year. It was the picture of perfect domestic tranquility.

Bruce shook his head as he watched it. Clint made breakfast. The two little boys were gleaming at him in bliss.

"I never thought it could be this detailed." Bruce said.

Tony stopped eating. He placed the bowl on the floor by his chair. He assumed, perhaps just as the others had, that this grainy-style medical footage would show the peculiar inner workings of Clint's deluded mind. He certainly expected more information about the outside surveillance rather than the internal implanted memories. This he hadn't imagined.

Clint sent the children off on the school bus, exchanging a few words with the bus driver who seemed as real as anyone else he had encountered. The world outside held the same level of incredible detail, right down to the extremely old neighbor Clint's hero side could not help but assist. When he returned indoors, Natasha waited in bed for him. Bruce, out of discretion for Clint's privacy, skipped the intimate moment between the husband and wife.

The video reel jumped forward and Tony got to his feet. The entire thing was beginning to unsettle his stomach. He could understand Clint's intense confusion and why he had so much trouble determining reality from this fake life of his. Tony doubted that if he had been exposed to such intimate interrogation, he'd come out with his mind right either.

"This is something else." He muttered.

"They're good." Bruce affirmed. "Just imagine the detail needed to create this. They'd need a genius to even maintain this level of elemental factors. Beyond that, they would need background information. Heavy meticulous background on not only Clint but you, me, and Natasha. Did you know she was a Russian Ballet dancer, Steve?"

Steve shook his head. "Not until now."

"They had to make this believable. They had to have truth to base all of it on to keep him sedated."

"All lies are based on truth." Tony said.

The image changed in a dramatic time shift, similar to a dream. At one point Clint was holding Natasha in an intimate embrace and the next he was walking in a shooting range. Tony turned back to the image, trying to place it.

"It looks like the range downstairs." Steve said. "Just with a separate archery area."

They watched as Clint went through what was most likely a routine programmed into him. He first cleared the shell casings from the gun side then worked to clean the archery side. When he returned to the firing line with an arrow in one hand and his bow in the other, the Avengers paid close attention. They remembered keenly what Clint was so desperate for when he'd awoken. He needed to shoot like he needed to breathe. They expected him to try and to miss. They did not expect him to scream.

The sound cut them to the core. They had never heard such a feral cry from their friend before. Not only did the shot miss it never even cleared the bow properly. As Bull wobbled onto the scene, Thor leaned forward with a hand over his mouth. Part of him wanted to ask Bruce to stop the footage. He wasn't sure he wanted to see any more of this.

"Clever story." Tony growled, listening as Bull recounted the Deathlock lie. He turned away from the screen when Clint's picture with the nearly severed arm appeared.

"They couldn't let him shoot. They knew they couldn't." Steve said.

Bruce commented. "Not only that. Sure he was going to miss. It was Clint's nightmare all he would ever do was miss. But no one has ever pulled Clint's bow back but him. There was no way they could ever recreate that feeling for him. He would know something was off."

"Did you see your Nobel prize?" Tony asked him.

"Yeah, for finding the necessary mechanism to send Steve back to the '40s?"

"The first thing Clint would want would be to ask Steve about Mexico."

"And they took that away from him. They forced Clint to remember it himself."

Tony shook his head again. "What the Hell kind of guy are we dealing with here, Bruce?"

"A smart one. A Professor Moriarty."

The team continued to watch, turn away, and turn back as the implanted memories replayed along the wall of the infirmary. Tony was introduced to his daughter, Isabella, and Banner to his potential love, Samantha. Steve's presence came up and went dismissed almost in the same breath. Information about Mexico was constantly hammered out of Clint at every interval, by each of the friends he thought he had.

When Clint came out of the drug fog the first time, Steve was there screaming at him. Steve remembered the moment distinctly. Clint didn't understand, he couldn't understand, not given what they had just witnessed. He was sent back under with a stronger dose of Ketamine. Bruce could see the majority of the drug readouts and all of them concerned him. But Clint was an agent and he was tenacious as much as he was bad at following doctor's orders. He pushed himself, despite everyone's warnings and as he tried one last time to make, and miss, the target shot he was at last roused from his intense nightmares.

A man ordered Clint back under. Another shocked Clint's bones with a cattle prod. The panic in the agent was palpable. Not for the third time, the team considered switching off the screen. They could hardly stand to watch as the dream world collapsed around him like the end of Inception. Bruce and he in the car. Bruce demanding Clint give up the information. Suddenly Clint was waking, his body fighting hard against the sedation. More drugs and he went under again. Clint could sense the differences again. His mind focused on the subtle changes of the rooms he had once dispelled. He went into the next room, kissing the children he'd grown to love goodbye even as their small voices screamed for their daddy to stop.

They thought that must be all. Steve already informed them of the incident in the cell. Clint's visual cortex recorded everything in the databank of the nano bots. They skipped passed it, intending to end the viewing there and try to pretend that they had never seen it to begin with. But Clint was not finished with his delusions. There was one scene left.

They watched the party. Smiles spread on their faces as the children laughed and played and Pepper swayed in her grass skirt. The dream-Bruce looked at Sam and she smiled at him, hinting of promises for a future relationship. Tony's little girl, jumping and dancing like a perfect princess.

The billionaire had to turn away again. He thought he could handle anything, but it took little more than the bouncing pigtails of an imaginary daughter to strike him straight through his metal heart.

"Oh God." Bruce gasped.

The world descended in red. Thor's jaw clenched, his hands fists as his heart burst at the injustice of the innocents' deaths. When the shade was lifted, when Bruce, Tony, Pepper, Natasha, little Aaron, Philip, and Isabelle were dead and dying, then he came out of the shadows.

Steve was already standing. He had alternated with Tony as to who could pace the floor more during the entire viewing. Seeing himself walk out of the shadows, taking everything Clint thought he had away, he couldn't just stand there. Steve walked out, putting his fist through a wall as he went. Thor ran after him.

The footage continued to Clint waking in the infirmary, seeing Steve, and trying to tear the man's heart out. Tony reached into Banner's lap and stopped the footage reel. Bruce was trapped in his position, still not believing what he had seen.

"How could someone do that?" he asked no one in particular. "How could anyone do that?"

"Steve _didn't_ do it." Tony told him.

"Not Steve, I know he didn't. But how could anyone make something like that? How could they just build up someone's world like that and completely rip it away? Murdering kids?"

Tony suddenly caught hold of Bruce's sense of injustice, and how very close he was of losing his cool in the worst possible way imaginable. Carefully, Tony extracted the tablet from his hands. "Bruce, I need you to calm down."

"I am calm!" Bruce roared at him. The voice was not entirely his own. A little bit of the Hulk certainly shone through. Bruce noticed it as well as Tony had. He sighed, letting his hands drop. "I am calm," he said more like himself. "I think that was the most despicable thing I've ever seen in my life."

"Pym needs this footage." Tony said.

"Not that last piece." Bruce instructed. "We're burying that. Understand? Where no one is ever going to find it. That's the last thing this world needs to see is Captain America bursting into a six year old's birthday party and murdering everyone."

"I'm not saying you're wrong and in fact I'm telling you I'm going to help." Tony replied grimly. "There are ten thousand plus of these things, Bruce. If we're going to bury it, we need to get to work."

:(:):(:):

Clint rolled over onto his right side in an attempt to get comfortable. When that provided a shot of pain, he adjusted and rolled left, but his hand had difficulty lifting beneath his head the way he wanted it to. He groaned in his discomfort and moved to his back again.

"Tasha?" he called out. "I feel like crap, I'm sleeping in."

Someone moved around his bed and adjusted the blanket to cover his chest.

"Kids at school?" Clint asked. He tried to lift his left hand to rub his eyes, but that someone stopped him. A long object was placed beside his left leg. He opened his eyes to see what was going on.

Instead of waking up in his bedroom as he expected, he found himself in a SHIELD infirmary. The person standing over him was Bruce Banner, and the object by his leg was a single blunt tipped arrow. Bruce was holding Clint's old SHIELD bow.

"Real life, Clint. One arrow, one shot. Target is right there." He said gently. He moved away from the bed to open the door. A yellow, red, and blue archery target had been taped to the wall a few inches to the left of a fist-sized imprint. Bruce returned to his side, helped place his bow in Clint's left hand, and stepped away.

Clint looked at him, examined his bow, the arrow, and the target. It took him a few minutes to understand what happened and to make the decision to shoot. He tried to lift himself up, but his muscles burned with exertion before he had the chance to lift a few inches. Bruce carefully came forward and adjusted the bed so Clint could sit upright. Pulling his bow string while resting back became too difficult of a challenge, so Bruce helped scoot him forward enough to give him a range of motion.

"Just so you know," Bruce said as Clint lined up the shot. "The idea of you constantly using your bow with an arm that took us two hours to set is really frustrating from a medical standpoint."

"And you aren't stopping me?" Clint just managed to pull the string back and released the arrow. It struck dead in the center miniscule X of the target. He let his body fall into the waiting pillow Bruce provided for his back, and winced as he set his arm cast across his abdomen.

"No, I'm not. I promised not to sedate you and that didn't exactly work out when your pet nano tech threw you into a seizure. I figured you'd need the proof again." Bruce took Clint's bow back and left it hanging on the same tree as his bag of fluid therapy. His quiver was in the corner with countless other arrows, prepped and waiting should they be necessary.

"I don't really know if I find the fact, that you've planned this far ahead, comforting, or really, really worrisome." Clint said.

"Yeah, well, don't expect to go into another seizure sometime soon. It took three hours, but we finally cleared your body of the nano tech. We contacted Dr. Pym, he's been helping us find who manufactured them. Unfortunately, the minute Tony located the two of you, he set off a fail-safe in the base. We're expecting the higher scientific minds made it out somehow, we just don't know how yet."

"Why do I feel like someone beat me with twelve baseball bats?"

Bruce smiled. "First, it could be you're exhausted. Second, you haven't eaten anything in four days. A team of mad scientists have been bumping you full of crack, special K, and PCP. You were electrocuted with a cattle prod. Steve said you were thrown ten feet in the base explosion. Then we gave you morphine and turned you into a mini, white hulk. When it finally seemed like you were stable, you had a seizure. So, I think, all of that combined, warrants a feeling of total fatigue."

Clint held up his cast, displaying the complete Tony Stark makeover in the once white cast material. Apparently Tony had gotten a hold of him with red, blue, black, and yellow sharpie markers. Clint's right arm now looked like it was encased in Iron Man armor. "Did no one decide to stop him before this happened?" he asked.

"Nope. Actually, I helped."

"Did you just call me 'Mini White Hulk'?"

"I did."

"Did I really break Thor's nose?"

"It's healed up now. The doctor actually had to reset it in place. We were surprised you didn't give yourself a concussion when you head butted him. Steve's ribs are still taped from the three fractures you gave him. You broke the bone beneath his eye, and Tony has a hairline fracture on the back of his skull."

"Seriously?"

"Mini. White. Hulk."

Clint grinned some. His face bothered him, so he lifted his left hand to try and scratch around his eye, but an entire web of tubes went with him. He resulted to using his right hand, but to do that, he had to sit up, lean forward, and crane his arm against the long hard cast. Clint grunted with his unhappy core's protest. He only got to itch some of his eye before the strain was too much, and he fell back into the pillow. Mercifully, Bruce rubbed his face for him.

"I think this is one of the most embarrassing moments of my life." Clint grumbled.

"Yeah, just wait until I start spoon feeding you." Bruce grabbed a glass of water from the tray beside him and held it Clint's mouth. He remembered to add a straw.

"Are we seriously playing this?" Clint asked.

"Drink up."

Clint followed the doctor's orders even though he didn't like it. When Bruce thought he had enough he took the glass away and replaced it on the tray. "I'm going to go grab something from kitchen. Any special requests?"

"Cheeseburger with a carton of fries."

"No."

Clint shrugged. Even that was painful. "Please do not come back here with baby food."

"Why not? Split peas not on the menu today? I think I might go blend some carrots in a medley of fruit for you while I'm at it." Bruce headed for the door as he spoke. Before he left, he turned back to Clint. "Do me a favor. If you are planning to run out of here, or kidnap another nurse, or even board a plane and just take off, please leave your catheter in."

"How long have you known me? And that is the only request you have?"

Bruce rolled his eyes. "I'd rather you not kidnap someone to, but at this point I think that's asking too much."

Clint watched as Bruce headed past the shattered window for the elevators. If he really wanted to incur Bruce's wrath, he would do exactly what the doctor ordered him not to. In fact, he had planned on taking out the itching, uncomfortable catheter so he could use at least one of his arms. He was surprised when he had second thoughts about that. He didn't mind being the patient everyone had to track down, tie down, or curse out. But given the holy Hell he'd put everyone through, just this time...he decided to play ball.

He looked over at the out of place leather couch. As his memory decided to be kind enough to cooperate. The chair Tony had brought in. The couch Steve and Thor manhandled through the window while the doctor, Elbert, watched disapprovingly.

"Agent Barton?"

Clint lifted his gaze from the couch to the doorway. Agent Maria Hill stood there at attention. She was a bootstrap broad from head to toe, the spitting female image of a two-eyed Director Fury. She didn't often make infirmary calls on her agents, let alone her ex-agents. This must have been a special occasion.

Clint attempted to straighten up in bed, but that only went so far before his muscles caved again. "Agent Hill."

"Doctors say you've progressed."

"So I've been told, ma'am."

She walked in a few steps until she stopped at the end of his bed. The sound of her boots echoed off the empty room. "Captain Rogers has updated us on some of the events of your incarceration. He's requested a commendation for you."

This was news. "Uh . . . Ok? I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to respond to that, frankly. Especially seeing as I quit."

"Imagine my surprise when I read it." She replied.

"I'm sure it was rather profound." Clint said. He was hoping expanding his vocabulary a little would work in his favor.

Her hands were behind her back, at attention like usual. He'd never known Agent Hill to have off hours. Typically, when they met, it was so she could squeeze his stones about some break in SHIELD protocol he'd managed. Congratulations from her was nearly always present with a double edge to the effect of 'Congratulations on surviving an explosion, but you failed to note the paint color on the walls'.

"Do you believe you should receive a commendation?"

He hated those kinds of questions. The ones where he could answer 'yes' and be branded for being cocky, or say 'no' and lack self-confidence. Clint looked out the door, nearly begging for Bruce to come back. Unfortunately, he was trapped, and alone with only Maria Hill.

"I doubt what I think matters." He decided to say.

"Well, should we lay out a few facts?"

Inwardly Clint rolled his eyes. _Crap_.

She moved around the room like a lioness would a strangled gazelle, taking her time to inspect which choice piece of beef she'd rather consume first. "Captain Rogers and you were on one mission; to deliver an unspecified 0-8-4 to the Puerto Salina base five days ago. While crossing the border back into California, you, as the driver, stopped at an unsanctioned check point – "

"We didn't know it was unsanctioned when there were twelve men with rifles waiting for us." Clint shot at her.

Maria went on undeterred. "You exited the vehicle, did not engage the hostiles, and were taken into custody. According to the Captain's report, the captors used a neuroleptic compound to restrain the both of you. Its chemical components and delivery gun, similar to SHIELD's own technology."

"I didn't engage because there was no reason to. It was just a border check point." Clint protested.

"While Captain Rogers easily subverted their interrogation tactics, you were separated, allowed to be experimented on, and even gave up the location of the SHIELD base. Now is anything I've said so far inaccurate."

Forgetting Banner's warning, Clint moved to jump out of bed. If this was the way SHIELD decided to come down on him, he wasn't going to stick around and listen to it. He didn't have to anymore, he wasn't part of SHIELD. He'd given this law of regulations and chain of command up when he marched into Fury's office and threw his badge in the Director's face.

"That's one hell of a spin, Hill, and you know it! They already knew about Mexico. They picked us up right outside of Puerto Salina. I didn't give them shit and Cap knows that!" Clint snarled.

He grabbed his bow with his casted hand and moved to grab his quiver. The monitor and fluid lines strained against him like tendrils to an octopus. His body protested bitterly at the escape from his mattress. His head pounded with one of those behind-the-eyes headaches that made his vision pulse black.

Maria watched him flutter around the room collecting his things as if he was actually going to leave. Her expression remained unreadable. "I doubt very much that your say on the matter will count with a toxicology report like this one." She held up a file and dropped it onto the now empty bed. "Cocaine? Ketamine? I know it's Mexico, Barton, but I expected you to show a little more restraint than that. I always saw you as a pot head myself."

Clint snatched the file, held it between them for a moment, then threw it against the wall. The individual papers sprang free from their paperclips and littered the floor. "Just what are you trying to do?" He accused.

"I'm trying to get to the facts."

He laughed in disbelief. "The facts? The facts! I'll tell you the facts; I was transporting unknown tech with no background info, and my butt found itself in the sling. Not yours!"

"You're a loose cannon, Barton." Marie said. "And I don't think I need to remind you that it's two times now you've caused incidents on this Helicarrier."

That jab stung. Before Clint could shout something he would live to regret, Bruce returned. From the voices he overheard and the state of the room he returned to, it became apparent that Clint and Hill were having a disagreement. Bruce stepped around the scattered remains of the file all over the floor, and set the food he'd procured on the side table.

"Lover's quarrel?" Bruce asked, looking dead at Maria Hill.

She didn't smile. "I was informing Agent Barton where he stands as far as the board review of this incident has gone."

"Bull." Clint growled. "I don't answer to you anymore, remember?"

Bruce placed a hand on Clint's shoulder. With a little persuasion, he directed Clint back to his bed. The archer, whether he said it or not, was grateful. He'd used up nearly all of his energy stomping around the room. Falling on his face in front of Agent Maria Hill was the last thing he wanted. Clint put on a little show of disdain over the doctor forcing him back to bed, but the minute he sat, his body crumbled into the pillows. His stomach did a back flip as he tried to determine whether he was just hungry or becoming ill.

"And where does he stand?" Bruce asked, smiling innocently.

"Captain Rogers has requested a commendation."

"Oh, good. I asked for one too."

Clint's head whipped toward Banner, his mouth dropping open.

Maria tensed briefly.

Bruce grabbed Clint's blankets, and took his time as he spoke and tucked in the wayward agent. "Stark did too, I think. After seeing the footage we did, it was our duty, we felt, to give credit where credit was due. I think you'll find that spelled out clearly when Dr. Pym responds to the telecommunication that Tony is currently working on."

Clint wanted desperately to see Maria's reaction to the news, but so gobsmacked was he that he couldn't tear his face away from Bruce's.

"Footage?" Clint asked.

"The nano bots we extracted from your brain were built with image storing software." Bruce straightened, still smiling at Agent Hill. "It's all in my report. Should be on the Director's desk."

Clint listened as the boot steps faded out of the room, heralding the exit of one Maria Hill. His mouth still hung open as he stared Bruce down. "Bruce Banner, do you realize what you've done?"

Bruce pulled Tony's chair over, picked up the tray of Clint's food, and was poised to spoon feed him if necessary. "Yes, I just lied to a senior agent to get her off your case. Now open up."

"You poured a bucket of water on the Wicked Witch of the West, is what you did!" Clint exclaimed.

Bruce held up his hand, armed with spoon and unnamed protein source poised within the ladle. "She is not the Wicked Witch, She's just mad about you quitting out of the blue. And yes, I just saved your rear. Now will you please eat this or am I going to have to insert a nasogastric tube?"

Clint looked at the spoon. Whatever it was didn't look particular appetizing, and after his fight with Hill, he was definitely not hungry. "What is it?"

"It was on the lunch menu."

"Good God, Bruce, it could be anything."

Bruce dropped the spoon back on the plate. "Nasogastric tube, it is."

* * *

That's all for now! I hope you liked the mini white hulk.

oh maria hill.

everyone seeing Steve kill those kids! Ag!

Please review!


	10. Chapter 9

NEW! Get excited!

* * *

Chapter 9

Describing his state as poor would have been too kind a word. Clint sat up in the hospital bed, his legs hanging over the side with his head sagging down toward the bucket in his lap. His Iron Man arm rested in his lap, hugging the bucket against him. His face was coated in a fine sheen of perspiration, which collected in the creases of his grimace, and dripped from his forehead. He never liked feeling ill, but given the last few days, he was even more set against it. Even worse than the shaking, sweating, nauseating, withdrawal symptoms, was knowing exactly what would make the symptoms go away. That cure sat on a shelf behind him in the unlocked drug cabinet.

Bruce informed him it had been approximately six hours since his last injection of sedatives, and three since his last pain relievers. And prior to that, he'd been in his acute psychotic state, high on both PCP and Morphine. Clint knew at some point he would go into withdrawal from all of the medications in his system, but for some reason he assumed he would be unconscious for that entire time. Fortunately, Bruce stuck beside him. Though, if Clint had his way, none of his teammates would ever be allowed to see him in such a condition. He wanted desperately to take out the contents of the drug cabinet, find a syringe, dump all the contents into his fluid line, and just go back to sleep. He couldn't stand feeling like his body wanted to break apart. Part of him even wondered whether or not he could return to the dreaming world. If there was Ketamine in that cabinet, could it trigger his dream state? Was it possible to go back again to the place that made him so very happy, even without the nano tech? His rational side knew those thoughts were insane. The last thing he needed in life was to start shooting more drugs than arrows in his attempt to regain a family he didn't have. Not having the medication inhibited his normal restraint.

The doctor rubbed a hand along Clint's shoulders. The touch was as comforting now as before when Steve had done the same. Though Clint appreciated the company, he knew Bruce had more important things to do than sit and babysit him.

"Do me a favor?" Clint asked.

"Yeah, of course." Bruce replied without hesitation.

Clint hiked a thumb backward to the drug cabinet on the wall. "Empty that."

Bruce looked back at the wall, seeing nothing particular amiss that should concern him. "Empty what?"

"Cabinet." Clint groaned. He wanted to bury his head in his palms, but his left hand remained trapped in a pound of tubesm and the cast on his right arm made bending a challenge. He hadn't forgotten Bruce hand feeding him the cafeteria mystery meat half an hour ago. He owed his present nausea to that.

"The drug cabinet?"

Clint nodded, but the move caused his head to pound worse. "Yes. Get it out of here."

"Clint, I'm not taking out the whole – "

"Yes, you are. You are, because all I can think about right now is how to get you to leave so I can break into that cabinet and make my shaking go away. I feel sick, and I don't like it, and my brain's telling me if I shoot up with something, I'll start feeling better. If you don't get them away from me, I'm bound to do something very, very stupid."

At this very raw description of his state of mind, Bruce stopped massaging his shoulders. Clint could feel his friend's eyes boring into the side of his head, but he refused to look at him.

"Clint, you would never make that mistake." Bruce told him firmly.

"Don't put a bag of Oreos in front of a fat guy. It's just too tempting, too easy." When Bruce still didn't move, Clint still pleaded with him. "Look, if you do this, I'm not going to think it means you don't trust me, all right? I don't trust me right now, so you shouldn't put any stupid, rash decisions past me."

Bruce stayed where he was, looking down at his friend with utter disbelief. Clint was smart. He was one of those men who could get himself into the worst situations possible, and still find himself a way out. He had been possessed by Loki, forced to do things beyond his control, and survived it with his integrity intact. Seeing him reduced to begging a friend to keep prescription drugs out of his hand was something the doctor had never needed to prepare for. To ease Clint's mind, he would do as he was asked.

"You think you might actually throw up in that?" he asked, pointing to the stainless steel bucket.

"I don't know, I'm just so nauseous I can't even think."

Bruce grabbed one of the pillows from the head of the bed and placed it over the top of Clint's bucket. It created the perfect shelf for the man to rest his head down, which Clint did. While he made himself comfortable, Bruce went to the cabinet and began setting the medications onto a stainless steel tray.

Tony approached from the hall, avoiding the arrow still stuck in the wall outside the door. Bruce had attempted to remove it, however he quickly found that at a distance so close to Clint's bed, the arrow was able to imbed halfway through the wall. "Hey, look who's up—Whoa, what got you? Clint, you look terrible!"

"Hi Tony, nice to see you to. Thanks for the update." Clint groaned through his pillow.

Tony looked over at Bruce. "I was gone for like an hour, what happened?"

"He woke up." Bruce replied. He walked by with the first tray of medication. It was going to take multiple trips to empty all of it.

"Yeah, he woke up, but I thought he was doing better. That's what you said." Tony placed the tablet he was carrying on the bed beside Clint, and knelt in front of him. If Clint didn't want to look at Bruce, he wasn't going to do the same for Stark. Thankfully, Tony didn't press the matter this time.

"Bruce, what are you doing?" Tony asked.

The doctor had loaded his second tray of medications and was on his way out the door with them. "Me? I'm cleaning up a little."

"I want crack." Clint mumbled unabashedly. "He's keeping it away from me."

"Would you settle for weed? I bet he's got a massive bag of that in his bunk." Tony deflected the seriousness of what Clint admitted to him. The doctors warned them he may display drug seeking behavior, it was a slim chance as much of the addiction he could suffer from was due to the psychological dependence of the drugs themselves. Clint's malcontent with his current reality may cause him to attempt to get back to when he _was_ happy. Withdrawal made him ill, therefore he would look for ways to feel normal, again. Achieving freedom from both his current symptoms and returning to his happy dream could only occur from another fix.

Clint smiled a little. "I never did buy that whole, 'I'm always angry thing'. Gotta be special brownies."

"Exactly. Let's call it medicinal marijuana. That worked in Colorado." He could see how badly Clint wanted to laugh, and yet the archer held it in for the sake of his pounding forehead. Tony stood from his crouch, and took Bruce's abandoned post at Clint's side. He had to take care to avoid the tentacles of lines still flowing into his arms.

"I don't think you would do that." Tony whispered to him, turning to a serious side.

"Runs in the family, so why wouldn't I? I think you're giving me too much credit."

Tony would be a liar to admit the confession didn't surprise him. The Avengers knew little of Barton's life before SHIELD. He was recruited by Coulson, that much was common knowledge. He had no family to speak of, and no one bothered to ask why. When it came to men like Clint Barton, it was better to expand on the information he offered rather than try to dig it out of him; much like the interrogation technique the scientists had attempted on him.

Falling on old habits, Tony reverted to humor. "What runs in the family? Being captured by mad scientists, or being injected with epileptic producing miniature insects?"

"Addiction." Clint replied flatly. "Dad was a drunk...a raging nasty one. Never saw the guy without a bottle in his hands, unless he was throwing it at me."

Bruce had returned with the second empty tray. He paused before taking out the last load. Clint's words stilled him.

"Well, looks like you broke that family tradition." Tony said. "I think besides that time we went dancing in Manhattan, and the time you went and drank yourself stupid on Asgard, you've never been out of control like that."

"I guess that isn't the kind of addiction I like." Clint replied, shaking again. His head lifted out of the pillow while he stared at the couch. He sighed. "This feeling sucks."

"I'm sorry."

"Stop being sorry. You and Pepper. She kept saying she was sorry for it. For my arm, for never shooting, for living so far aw – " Clint stopped himself and winced. "Not real. That wasn't real."

"No, that part wasn't."

"Then stop looking at me like that. I haven't forgotten what Bruce said about the recordings. I don't want to know what you saw. I don't care. And I just want to pretend it never happened, all right?"

Tony opened his mouth to say something he hoped would be witty, but his phone rang to the tune of Ozzy Osbourn's _Iron Man_. He stood, disentangled from Clint's tubes, and fished it from his pocket. "Pep? Hey, yeah, I called you. Did you get my message? We found them. Yes, he's sitting right here." Tony held his hand over the receiver and spoke to Clint. "She wants to talk to you. Do you feel OK enough to talk now?"

Clint considered it for a moment. He nodded carefully. "I can't hold the phone."

"I'll hold it." Tony said. He approached, avoiding using the speaker phone for now. Pepper and the archer had a special connection similar to a brother and sister. As nosy as Tony liked to be, he preferred to avoid intruding in on their privacy.

Clint tried to straighten up as he spoke. "Pep? Hi, yeah, it's me. You weren't worried were you?"

On the other side of the line he could hear Tony's girl breathe a sigh of relief. "_Clint, we were so worried about you! The minute we heard about the disappearance, Tony left right away. Are you all right? Is Captain Rogers all right?"_

Clint smiled a little. "Yeah, it's ok. Steve's fine. I'm going to be all right."

"_What do you mean, 'going to be'? Where are you now?!"_

The archer winced at the sharp sound in his ear. Even Tony could hear her exclamation. "It's fine. I'm getting better. Banner's helping."

"_Helping! But how are you? What's wrong? What happened?"_

Clint took a deep breath to try and orient himself. He removed the pillow from his pot, which caused Tony to angle to his left a little more. After listening to Pepper's little panicked tirade, she stopped long enough for him to speak. "It's ok, Pep. Be back home in no time."

He nodded a little to Tony, and he pulled the phone back to his own ear. Clint's stomach groaned and, not long after the conversation, Tony moved into the hall to avoid Clint's retching being picked up on Pepper's end. Bruce returned to his place, the drugs having sufficiently been stowed away.

"_Is that him?"_ Pepper asked Tony. Apparently, he didn't leave fast enough.

"Yeah, it is." He replied. He angled past the sole arrow still sticking out of the hallway wall and meandered toward the elevators as he spoke. "He's doing better, but he's had it pretty bad."

"_Tony, what did they do to him? What about Steve?"_

He paused outside the infirmary next to Clint's. Bruce sealed the door handle with a padlock. Inside, there were three stacks of medications in various glass bottles and pill forms. He thought about what Clint told him and his chest tightened.

"They really screwed with him. He doesn't want to worry you. Steve's . . . Steve's all right. I think Clint kicked the crap out of him more than the others did. Did Natasha come back?"

Pepper could tell how much he wanted the subject changed. "_This morning. I picked her up from LaGuardia. SHIELD came about an hour ago to get her."_

"Can you do me a favor?"

"_Anything, you know that."_

Tony pulled his eyes away from the medications to stare instead at the blank wall opposite of him. He thought a lot about Clint's words. Drug-induced or not, his friend always hit the very core of him. This was harder then he thought it would ever be. "I want to be there with you right now." Tony whispered.

Pepper was quiet.

"You know, he's just . . . Pepper I don't want to say something if I don't mean it and I don't want to keep doing this same dance and never go any farther, especially when I know how happy you could be, and aren't, because of all this stuff I put you through constantly. You know I'm not big on commitments. I can't even agree to a magazine subscription. And this worrying crap, it's just going to make you go grey – "

"_Tony_?"

"And I really can't believe I'm even saying this or asking this, but with everything I just saw it just seems right. You know? It's right."

"_Tony, what's right? What favor do you have for me?"_

He scrubbed his hand along the bottom of his jawline. He couldn't believe he was considering this. He would blame Clint for it later. "I want you to go to the store. That one you like on 5th avenue? I want you to walk in, look at every ring in the place, and I want you to pick out the one you like so it's right. Then I want you to say yes."

There was a crash in the background as something hit the floor. Tony could only hope it wasn't his soon-to-be-fiancé.

"_OH MY GOD! Are you saying what I think you are_?"

"If you think I'm asking you to love and adore me the rest of your life under the symbolic presence of a shiny diamond on your finger, then yes."

There was a fluster of confusing sounds as more objects either hit the floor or were thrown across the room. When the tornadic movement ceased, her voice reappeared. _"Tell me honestly, is Clint dying?"_

Tony shook his head. "What?! No, he's not dying! I just asked you to marry me and you want to know if it's because Clint's dying?"

"_I was just trying to decide whether you were sincere or not."_

"I am being sincere!" Tony exclaimed.

"_Well, you're going to have to prove it. I will buy the ring I want, but then you are going to have to actually ask me."_

"I did ask you. This is me, right now, asking you. I will even get on one knee if you want me to."

"_Nope. Nope, not right. This isn't how you are supposed to propose. So, no. I'm going shopping. I will see you when you get back. Tell Clint and Steve 'I miss them'. Is there something I can get them? To cheer them up?_"

Thor appeared from the elevator with his hammer dangling from his belt on one side. Seeing Tony standing in the hall brought him to a pause. He indicated the cell phone with a questioning look. Tony extended his arms to either side as if trying to conjure how in the world his conversation had gotten so far out of hand. At the very least, he had expected a loving and adoring response of utter, un-relinquished glee...but no. She was asking how to make Clint feel better. Tony put the phone back to his ear. "A bag of crack would make him really happy right now." He said.

"_Oh, Tony, stop being so dramatic."_ The line went dead as she hung up on him.

He pulled the phone away, read that in fact it was disconnected, and slid it back to his pocket. "Unbelievable. You try to express yourself, and suddenly it's all shopping and Hawkeye."

"Do you experience discontent with your maiden?" Thor asked.

"Discontent nothing, I think she's about to make me hire a marching band, drop rose petals over the entire city of New York, and have a bag piper play the wedding march."

Thor's face showed his surprise. "Have you asked for her hand? Is this the metal man requesting to be betrothed? Why, this is a day of feasting!"

"It would be if she said yes instead of laying down terms." Tony replied, avoiding the clap on his back Thor attempted.

"Why, it is the custom of Asgardian maidens to request such terms of those they consider. My father, Odin, had to travel a fortnight in search of a white dire wolf, Geri, with which to bestow on my mother. "

"Well, she's got Clint's dire wolf, isn't that enough? No, she wants all the pomp and circumstance I can pull out of thin air."

They headed back into the infirmary. Clint finished vomiting in his bucket, and both Dr. Elbert and an assistant arrived. After allowing the archer to wash his mouth out with water, the assistant retreated with the bucket in hand.

"Do you think you're done?" Elbert asked.

"I think I need a hit before I shake to pieces." Clint moaned. He attempted to scoot back into bed, but with both arms relatively useless for him, he could do little but look in the direction he wanted to go and remain exactly where he was. He felt grateful when Thor walked to him without being asked, and gently eased him into position. For the second time in the hour, another man tucked him into bed.

"All right, let's discuss that then." Elbert gently said. He grabbed the one free chair and pulled it over beside Clint. "I want to talk systematically now. And after we have this talk, I'm going to decide what will be best to give you. I think you understand what you are going through now, right?"

"Yeah."

"That's good. Now I'm going to ask you about your pain level. One, being no pain. Ten, being the worst possible pain you have ever experienced. Before you answer that and before today, what was the worst pain you had ever experienced in your life? Physical pain?"

Clint closed his eyes as he tried to focus on the question. "Getting hooked up to a cattle mover was pretty horrible."

"Ok. Good. Let's go with that then. Now focus on your left foot."

Clint's skeptical eye opened. "What?"

Elbert shrugged. "Trust the method. Left foot, 1-10."

"One."

"Good. Left arm."

Clint thought about that. Though it hadn't been broken, it was bothering him with the Christmas tree of catheters and tubes. "Three."

"Abdomen?"

"Does nausea count?"

"You tell me."

"Two."

"Right arm?"

Another pause as Clint considered his options through the pounding of his brain behind his eyes. "Six."

"Chest?"

"Four."

The doctor seemed surprised. "Is your chest tight? Are you having trouble breathing?"

"No, just feels like I was beat by every batter on the Yankees."

That seemed to satisfy him for now. "Head?"

"Nine." Clint said without hesitation.

"Ok. I'm going to borrow your friends for a moment and form a game plan to help you. I'm assuming you want to avoid me actually giving you something you may become dependent on?" Clint nodded uncertainly. "That's very good. Dr. Banner has been assisting me once in a while in the pharmacy. Given the private work he's done abroad, I think if we put our heads together, we could think of something that could give you some relief. So, sit tight, and let us talk for a second."

With the physician's instruction, Tony, Bruce, and Thor retreated to the hallway out of Clint's line of sight. Elbert pulled the door shut and guided them away from the shattered window until he was sure they could not be over heard.

Ready now, he spoke. "I think you understand he is experiencing withdrawal symptoms."

"You said before a lot of this was going to be in his head." Tony countered. "That doesn't look like it's in his head."

The doctor pushed his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. "It may not look that way, but from what he has described to me, it is. I noticed the cabinet was empty. Did he ask for that or did you just do it?"

Bruce leaned on the wall. "He asked."

"He thinks he needs it because he's been on it. He is stressed out, and I'd wager that his present symptoms support that. Has he expressed a desire to get back to his hallucinations?" The looks on both Bruce's and Tony's faces were all he needed. "Right now, Clint is experiencing a mental crisis. He found euphoria there, and he wants to repeat that experience. That leads to drug seeking behavior in order to retain it. He's also very smart. He is not dependent on the drugs, he's dependent on the psychological need for them. In a way, he's forcing symptoms to justify his need."

Thor extended his hand like a school child, bringing the attention to himself. "What you pronounce brings to mind the Gabondrakes of my realm. It is common practice in such case to remove a man's drakes, and exchange them with a falsehood which removes their desire. Though, deception is quite compulsory to edict a switch commendably."

Tony scoffed. "You're telling us we need to con a spy? Give him something he thinks will work, and what happens when it doesn't?"

"That's the thing." Bruce said. "If it is in Clint's head, then if he _thinks_ it is going to work, it _is_ going to work. It's psychosomatic. A placebo effect."

"I do not understand the words you have chosen, but your confidence comforts me." Thor said.

Tony asked, "So, what are we going to give him?"

The doctor indicated for them to wait for a moment. He took the keys to the padlocked infirmary from Bruce and walked into the room. They watched as he filled a syringe with normal saline solution, then he picked up one of the bottles of clear medication and retreated with it in his hand. He returned the door key to Bruce and left them with a final instruction. "I'll be the one lying to him, but you need to expect it to work just as much as he should." Leisurely, they returned to the room together. Elbert was talking even as he entered. Clint, desperate for anything, looked to him.

"All right! Sorry, it took a little while to find it. I've been working on this with Dr. Redridge for the past year for his thesis of neuroanatomy. It's called Natralaxone. Have you heard of it?"

"No." Clint whispered. He felt his stomach turning on him again and decided that no matter what the special of the day was in the lunch room, he was not going to eat it ever again.

"The point of this is to help your brain to relax. It isn't a sedative, or something you could ever become dependent on, but it will help you with the withdrawal you are experiencing. Now, it's a trial drug. We've used it in a couple hundred patients so far, so I want you to be aware of the side effects you may experience. You may feel tired, you may sleep, but it will be a dreamless sleep, and you may lose your appetite." Elbert slipped the medication bottle back into his pocket and produced the syringe. He attached the needled end to one of Clint's numerous IV ports, and slowly depressed the plunger. "I know you're in a lot of pain right now, so I'm going to bend the rules a little and give you the high end of the dose. You should start to feel it in about four minutes. First, your eyes will get a little heavy feeling, and your headache will go away. After that, you'll start feeling less nauseas. If you want to sleep, don't resist it. It would be better for you to wake up after all this has passed."

Clint watched the fluid mix with what was in his line already. It burned slightly as he felt it reach the veins on the back of his hand. His eyes turned to the clock on the wall to begin timing it. He was desperate for relief of some kind. He felt like his entire body was rebelling against him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

"Will I stop wanting drugs after this?" he asked.

The doctor nodded. "That's the idea. Once we get you past this difficult part, you won't want to come back. So sit tight. How long has it been?"

"Two minutes." Clint answered automatically.

"How does your head feel? You should start feeling that behind-the-eyes headache ebb away first."

Clint's eyes slid shut. The doctor was right. He started feeling it. He sighed a little as he felt the meds going to his head. It began like a warmth to calm the overwhelming shakes of his body. He stilled, his body relaxed, and at four minutes exactly the overwhelming pain in his skull dissipated.

"If it's too much, let me know." Elbert said.

Clint mumbled a little as he felt his body's tension release. His tight muscles eased out of their bundles, and everything seemed to feel smooth again. He liked this feeling; this normalcy returning. He didn't feel as drunk as before, or detached from reality. He was simply ordinary again. Elbert squeezed his shoulder in reassurance. Apparently, without Clint even saying anything he could see the archer's improvement.

"Why don't we give you a little peace. Bruce, you were going to help me with this research, why don't we get back to it?" Elbert posed quietly.

"Sure. Let's go. This is great data." Bruce played along. "Tony, you need to call Pym and see how the search is going. Thor, you want to keep an eye on Hawk for a while?"

"I shall indeed do my duty to our friend."

"Good." Tony said. Together, the three exited the room, leaving Clint to Thor's surprisingly capable hands. The Asgardian sat in the doctor's abandoned seat and propped his legs on the couch. He would stay in that position for a century if the need arose. The others quietly filed away, unwilling to let their private looks and memorization at the placebo effect take away from the benefit it was having on Barton.

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Next chapter: Natasha returns! What will happen?

Please review!


	11. Chapter 10

NATASHA! oh the madness!

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Chapter 10

He saw her, out of the corner of his eye, rushing down the hallway with a look of pure grim determination. Agents from either side of the hall scrambled out of her way as the Widow approached. None were willing to hamper her forward progress, especially given the lengths she had taken to reach the Heli-carrier in the first place. When Bruce Banner saw her coming, he knew he had to stop her at all costs.

"Tasha! Tasha, wait! Hang on a second!" He hurried after her, turning the corner he'd seen her go down. He could tell she was headed for the infirmary. It was only by that stroke of luck he was able to stop her before she saw Barton, or rather Barton saw her.

Hearing her name, she slowed and tracked around to find her caller.

"Dr. Banner." She said calmly.

He caught up to her. "Have you seen Tony yet?"

Her expression changed to bewilderment. "Why would I look for him?"

"Wait," Bruce pulled her elbow to keep even her slowed pace from going forward. "You need to see Tony before you can see Clint."

"Tell me why I would do that after just getting off a twenty hour flight?" She pulled her arm out of his grip.

"Because when Clint sees you, he might just have a nervous breakdown and ask if you brought the kids with you." Her look of confusion deepened, so he pressed on. "Please, just go see Tony. He's in the lab working with Pym. Go to him first, and then come find me. I'm going to go see if Clint wants to try and eat something, so when you are done just come find us. I have my phone in my pocket. Text me when you're coming so I can prep him."

Natasha listened to his instruction with a growing dread, though her face failed to show such emotion. Stiffly she nodded. "I heard he was awake last night. How is he?"

She didn't miss his pause. Bruce took his glasses off his face and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I think you should just go see Tony first. It'll explain everything."

Not willing to argue the point, and keenly aware of the effect the conversation was having on him, Natasha consented. She changed directions, cutting a clear path to the lab instead of the infirmary. Just as before, it was obvious enough by her attitude that she was not fit to be impeded. Men and women of all stations lunged out of her way. And the minute she entered the lab, Stark's eyes pulled away from his on screen conversation with Hank Pym to look at her.

"You're here? You didn't see him yet, did you?" Tony said instantly. He flicked the mute button on Pym.

Natasha stepped inside the door, looking around at all the new foreign equipment Banner and Stark had no doubt fabricated out of thin air. She wondered how long they had been at it as she inspected a container of red-stained miniature insects.

She said, "No. Bruce said I had to see you first."

"Oh, good. Sit there." Tony pointed out the place behind one of the clear monitors. It was mounted to the ceiling on a telescoping arm and faced the corner of the shop. A single chair waited there behind the floating desk top.

"You arrange to give me candy and a soda too, Stark?" Natasha asked sarcastically.

"I didn't know what flavor you liked." He replied, equally cool. He held his finger up to Hank in the universal sign of "Hold, Please," and pulled the swiveling monitor to himself. She watched as he worked through a few streams of familiar code encryptions. Whatever he had to show her, he protected with his JARVIS level security system.

To her, he said, "Pepper mentioned you were on your way so we didn't delete this last file as of yet. All the others have been altered already. You'll understand why after you see it. It's long, so don't expect to go anywhere for a while. Is Bruce checking on Clint, did he say?"

"Food." She answered, watching him more closely.

"Good, he's going to have serious munchies after the withdrawal wears off." Tony said. Finishing with the security entry, he turned the screen to the wall again and pressed the room security damper to prevent the hidden cameras from attempting to spy on them. Tony grabbed a tablet off the desk and handed it to her.

"Medical history. This shows what they did to him physically. He's recovering, much better today than when he came in. What they actually did to him, is there." He pointed to the screen. "Just press play."

Natasha looked at the screen, the seat obviously established just for her, and the strange objects around the lab. "I guess this must be something, for you to go through all this work."

Tony retreated to his side of the lab and as far from the horrible false memories as possible. Sitting through one more round of those playbacks would kill him.

"You have no idea." Tony said.

Natasha sat in the offered chair with the tablet in her lap. Tony planned ahead enough to leave her a set of headphones. He made it clear he wanted nothing at all to do with what she was about to watch. Slipping the headphones over her ears, she tucked her legs between herself and the table edge with the tablet in her lap. As she pressed play on the video feedback, she skimmed through the medical records. Some were unsurprising. He'd been a hostage before. They were both well acquainted with interrogation techniques. The details of his capture, at a border crossing in Puerto Salina, didn't lend itself to nuance either. Natasha saw the effects of SHIELD's neuroleptic dart guns knock the Hulk out on occasion, so getting both Steve and Barton to succumb didn't surprise her.

As she combed through the file, her ears listened to the conversation between Clint's hostage takers. The footage had been reviewed, extensively apparently. New mechanical tags were added to the faces and traced to the side of the screen where corresponding headshots existed. One man, code named Four Eyes, was already identified. The second, Sharp, had a new name tag reading Professor Ivan Grant. Both were unfamiliar to her.

She thumbed down the file as the nano-bots inserted into Clint's veins. There was a detailed toxicology profile on him, including three very potent, very familiar trade names. Two had alarmingly high concentrations in his system.

Her eyes flicked over to Tony. He had the picture of a third man, sharp dressed with slicked back blond hair and an air of money about him, on the screen to the left of Hank Pym's face. There was only the codename, Gatsby, beneath the head shot. Tony and Pym were discussing him as a file loaded from Pym's lab to the Heli-carrier.

Her eyes returned to the screen as Clint's eyes opened to his first hallucination. Natasha leaned forward a little as she recognized herself, her hair slightly different in this image than in real life. She turned up the volume to listen easier to the conversation they exchanged. The little boys bobbed into the room, clutched to her chest. Clint left to care for them and Natasha remained in bed, waiting for him. Their lips met. Their hands clasped against the mattress as they pulled their clothing away.

Natasha pulled the headphones off and shoved out of her chair. The tablet hit the floor with a sickening _clang_. The sound of her own pleasure-filled moan echoed in her mind.

Tony looked back at her.

"What the Hell is this? Is this supposed to be some sick joke?" She growled.

Hank waved a hand. _"I'll finish sending the file, you've got your hands full there. I'm running a data scan on the footage you sent me. Should have some answers within the next few hours. I'll call if anything develops."_

Tony hit the button to hang up without replying. To Natasha, he said, "We couldn't explain it to you. You had to see it for yourself."

"See what? Are you trying to tell me they did that to him? Made him see that?"

"It was a very sophisticated dreamscape controlled by hallucinogens, peripheral subliminal messaging, and a detailed neuro scientist. They literally used these," he picked up one of the canisters of nanotech and tossed it over for her to catch. "To hack into Clint's brain and implant those thoughts and memories, all as some kind of interrogational experiment. Do you understand now why we don't want him to see you right away? Steve won't even go near him."

Natasha wanted him to cut back on the cerebral talk, but she already knew it was difficult for him. This situation had him stressed beyond reason, and she was beginning to understand why. She turned the canister over in her hands, shifting the blood stained nanotech within.

"Steve rescued him, what do you mean Cap won't go near him?"

Stark extended a hand to the video play back. "You have to just watch it. If you don't, I'm just deleting it and that will be the end anyone ever hears about it anyway."

She looked back at the monitor to see Clint walking down the lines of a shooting range. Stark was probably right, she should watch the rest of it. Despite her reservations, she returned to her seat, picked up the tablet again, and placed the head phones over her ears.

Tony watched her for a few minutes. He wondered where she was in the replay, but was not about to walk close enough to see for himself. He returned to the digital readouts and Pym's newly loaded program. It allowed him a finer construction blue print of the nanotech's individual framework. He was hoping, by analyzing the parts, he could come up with a fabricator but he knew this for what it truly was. Busy work. He hated seeing his friend in pain and right now every time Clint looked at him all he could see was that little pig tailed girl Tony Stark did not have. Clint tried to hide it, but Tony knew the truth.

Natasha remained silent behind him. Her eyes fixed on the monitor, a grim determination keeping her from screaming any louder than the confines of her own mind.

:(:):(:):

As time passed, Tony shifted from standing before his massive touch screen to sitting on the other spare desk. His legs were folded under him with one elbow hooked to support his head. The photo of the man, known only as Gatsby, floated stationary on one side of the screen, while a facial recognition software compared it to thousands of others found in the SHIELD databases. Thus far, the man remained a ghost.

He heard the chair push away from the table to his left and glanced over to see Natasha either finished or gave up watching the rest. Given how long it had been, he figured the latter to be most likely the case. She walked over to him, her face unreadable.

"You are burying this?" She asked first.

"Already done." Tony said.

"Steve saw it?"

"Yes."

"And Clint knows we have it?"

"He wasn't happy about it, either." Tony replied.

She had a talent for becoming emotionless if the need arose. He could see that part of her clearly right now. Like a hardened suit of armor the emotionless Russian operative fell into herself and mortared solid walls across her feelings. Tony had seen this a few times. The way he fell back on his cerebral talk, she fell into her roll of a detached husk. He knew not to be insulted by it.

"I wonder if it's the best to see him right now." She handed back his tablet, having finished the medical report.

"He's doing better since we shot him full of placebos. That doc is something else. Took two shots of saline, and suddenly Clint's cured. We're keeping an eye on him just in case he gets bad. Bruce, Thor, and I are taking shifts."

Natasha nodded. She removed the cell phone from her pocket and hovered her finger over the screen for a moment before sending off a message to someone Tony couldn't see. She turned and headed for the door.

"Oh, Stark?"

Tony cast a glance over his shoulder.

"Find him."

Tony didn't reply. He returned to the screen and watched the recognition software continue to process as he tried to track down the slick haired Mr. Gatsby.

:(:):(:):

Natasha knew Tony wouldn't rest easy until the man was brought in for all that he had done. What she couldn't understand, was the 'why'. Why did this man take Clint? What was in Puerto Salina that the Captain and Clint were transporting? In the enhanced footage, she saw the word "GH" highlighted, but very little information beyond that. Apparently, Tony and Bruce's digging found as little on that as on the Gatsby character.

She headed down the main hallway, waiting for Bruce to return her text message. It had been hours now since she landed and searched Clint out. There were a few places on the Heli-carrier she knew he liked to hide if he'd been released by the infirmary already. Even if he wasn't released, she doubted very much she would find him there but she had to try something.

She went to the infirmary first, finding three arrows sticking out of a target in the wall across from an open door. Apparently, she'd found Clint's room, though she couldn't imagine why no one complained about the arrow shafts. If she wasn't mistaken, a fist had been put through the wall beside the target. Only Thor or Steve could have done that.

It took a few minutes, but her phone finally chimed. Bruce's instructions were simple. He gave a location: the upper hanger bay. That was hardly a surprise. He also gave a time. He wanted five minutes to prep Clint before she barged in on them. She replied to him and started walking. If she went slowly enough, she'd arrive exactly on time. Her hope was that the doctor got to the point quickly with Clint.

The upper hanger had been renovated since Thor and the Hulk decided to destroy over half of it. The familiar ledge overhanging the cockpits of the M10s and Quinjets was a former favorite for Hawkeye to roost in. Now, the ledge was gone and a separate lookout pad had been put in its place. To him, that proved too busy of a location to enjoy his introverted privacy. Now, he preferred to be on jet's noses or wings. When Natasha reached the lookout, she found Bruce and him there.

Thor stood below them, leaning on the wing of the Blackbird stealth air fighter. He swung Mjlonir in lazy circles and, somehow, avoiding damage to the billion dollar jet in the process. Clint sat with his back to the door of the Jet's cockpit and his legs hanging off the wing. Bruce sat beside him. Natasha approached cautiously from behind them. She wasn't necessarily being stealthy about it. The last thing she wanted was for Clint to think he was being stalked by her. Though difficult, she even managed to scrape her shoes along the floor to make her presence known.

Thor's hammer stopped swinging. He leaned down to see beneath the wing and, perceiving her, he tapped Bruce's leg in their pre-arranged signal. The Asgardian left them to catch up with her.

"Lady Widow. I hear your trip here was a long and arduous one." He said.

"Long, yes." She replied. Clint hadn't turned toward her. He wasn't even looking at Bruce now. "Bruce tell him I was here?"

"He is allowing the news to sink in as we speak. Our friend archer has expressed no ill will toward you, so do take comfort in that." Thor smiled when he said it, as if it may put her at ease.

Natasha knew better. "Any sign of Steve?"

The smile crumbled. Thor indicated a place, a few jets down, where a blue jean covered leg was the only outward appearance of the hidden Captain America. "Son of Barton has not forbidden his presence, though I believe our leader has taken the circumstances upon him to heart. He suffers a melancholy of which he has not arisen. It is easily forgotten that, he too, shared the suffering of the archer."

"Has he talked to anyone?" she asked.

"Little since his false deeds were made known." Thor admitted.

There was movement on the Blackbird. Clint eased down until his feet were planted on solid ground. Natasha was in full control of her emotions, but seeing that cast across his chest in full Tony Stark replica nearly caused her to laugh. Her hand flew up to her mouth, and she forced herself to bite her finger to keep the humor in. They stood there for a time; Natasha on one side with Thor, Clint on the other with Bruce, and Steve hiding in the background. Then the wall broke. Clint walked to her and unabashedly threw his good arm around her neck.

Natasha drew forward awkwardly. The strange hallucination replayed before both their eyes. Waking up in the same bed, fingers intertwined on white silken sheets with their rings pressing into one another. She could feel the desire in him even now. But with it came the reservation. It wasn't real, this advanced relationship they shared. It wasn't rational to expect the same emotion out of her. Clint pulled away first, leaving her feeling empty and naked without him.

"I'm sorry." He apologized. "That wasn't fair."

"No, no, it's ok. I went to see Stark before I came down. So I understand." She tried to put him at ease.

Clint focused just slightly to her left at her ear to prevent their eyes from connecting. "Did he delete the part where you and I had sex?"

This time she allowed herself to smile. She wasn't sure what she expected seeing him, but this normality was off putting. "No. In fact I think he took notes."

He shrugged. "Yeah, well, at least they got one thing right."

She raised her eyebrow.

"Me on top."

Bruce cleared his throat uncomfortably. Thor laughed and clapped Clint on the shoulder.

Barton sneaked a glance toward her to see how the words struck. Accidentally, their eyes met, and the thing he had been avoiding letting her see was there; Longing. Disappointment. Coming to terms with the truth. Seeing her and having to keep their distance. So this is what the others had been dealing with. She could tell it was wearing on them. This, was Clint better? She was glad to have avoided the worst. His eyes dropped as quickly as they met. She watched his left fingers glide past each other as if the phantom feeling of the lost wedding ring had returned.

Thor, ever present and ready to change the mood of a conversation, announced: "Ah! How has it escaped me? Our metal friend has asked for his beloved's hand in the ceremony of humanity's togetherness."

Eyes flew to Thor and jaws hit the floor.

"Tony asked Pepper to marry him?" Bruce demanded, flabbergasted.

Thor continued to nod and smile. "Yes, it did not go the way he had anticipated, however, as it seems conditions were laid down of which he believed may not be adequately fulfilled. Therefore, I had taken it upon myself to be his second in the quest of attaining the hand of his spice woman."

Clint snorted as both Bruce and Natasha began shaking their heads quickly.

"Oh God, what did you do?" Clint asked, for no one else could.

Thor shrugged. "It was all terribly uncomplicated. Should a woman's family of Asgard be posed with such a question, the result may be a quest that encaptures nearly a full year. The terms of our fair sister were slight, in comparison to what was required of Volstagg's wife. Can you believe the difficulty in tracking down a single cloak of raven light in the month of Moon's Moor? And the moment it was discovered, she reveals that in fact her size is a smidge larger than Volstagg had prepared for, and the entire search began anew! This was not such a difficulty I assure."

The three waited in silence for him to go on. Curiosity and dread overcame them.

"He was very specific, the son of Stark was." Thor defended. "And I followed those requests to the best of my knowledge for your Midgardian customs, though on many fine points I was required to enlist the assistance of my Jane. First, his to-be-betrothed requested flowers dropped upon the city. It took a deal of hunting and a trip to Alfheimr for an adequate supply, but they were brought en mass and distributed as instructed until the city was layered. I had no knowledge of this marching band of which he spoke, but of bands I am well familiar and therefore urged my good friend, the balladist of Fluhinir, to compose a twelve note epic to be resonated in the building of the Tower while our sister worked. Then, there is this bag piper and wedding march, again of which I know not, but I enquired of Jane and was thoroughly displeased at the jarring noise. I hope my mind was in the right sense when I instructed the balladist to take his royal string-men along to play this particular tune himself. The spectacle was very magnificent. I believe the son of Stark is now fully betrothed, as his woman cried quite copiously on my cape at the time. For a reason I cannot understand, however, Jane is refusing to speak to me."

Clint couldn't help himself. He was the first to ask. "Thor, when in the Hell did you get all that crap done? I've only been in bed since last night, and you've been with me since lunch."

"Is a night not long enough to fill such simple requests? And I did depart just this pass hour to be sure the ceremony was performed in the light of day, and have now since returned to your company." Thor asked, almost worried. "Should I have extended the time to a week perhaps? If required, I would be quite willing to repeat the gesture on the morrow."

Natasha patted his shoulder. "No, Thor, I think you've done quite enough."

"More than enough. The minute Pepper sobers up enough to tell Tony, I think we're all in for an earful." Bruce said. "I just can't believe Tony did it."

"From what I observed, it surprised even himself." Thor said.

Natasha looked at Clint, expecting him to share a private glance with her. She could see his struggle. No matter how much he wanted everything to be normal between them, the false memories had changed his perception of her. Their playful private games were over for now, at least until he could finish detaching his soul from the life he never lived. The group seemed to move as one. All were curious to get back to the lab before Tony sought them out.

As Bruce attempted to explain the reasoning for Jane's likely displeasure, Clint quietly whispered to Natasha, "Is Steve still over behind the Quinjet?"

She smiled inwardly. He was still Hawkeye. "He's following us." She said.

"I told him it's all right." He continued. "That I get it now. I just don't know that he believes me."

_Maybe because I don't believe you either,_ she thought, but did not say. When Clint looked at her with that horrible loss in his eyes, it was difficult not to be overtaken by him. She was sure that the look he'd reserved for Steve was the polar opposite, despite what he tried to suppress. For Steve, it was better to avoid the look than accept it.

"I appreciate it though. He's a good guy." Clint admitted.

"You are too." She told him.

He snickered. "Not that good."

**_"YYYYOOOOOUUUUU!"_** From the landing Tony Stark leaned over, his right hand extended in a loaded point in Thor's direction. He flew down the stairs, two at a time and stalked across the hanger in an unstoppable momentum until he was practically on top of the larger Asgardian.

"I know what you did! I know exactly what you did! Do you know how? It was on forty-seven news channels from CNN to Al Jazeera! Three million hits on Youtube right now, and you know what that is? My elaborate city wide proposal to Pepper Potts in the most uniquely Thor way possible. I just hung up the phone with her, and she was asking me what kind of frosting I like as someone else was trying to help her blow her nose." He grabbed Thor by his broad shoulder plates, stood on his toes, and planted a kiss on the side of the blonde's face. "Did I ever tell you, you were a beautiful man?"

Thor's mighty laughter shook all the cockpit glass as he smacked Tony across the shoulders. "Good health to you, my friend! And many years of joy!" Thor bade the stunned trio directly behind him forward. "This is indeed cause for celebration! There will be feasting and boasting and drinking, of course. Come, Captain, come! We are gone to make merry!"

The first full appearance of Steve's torso occurred just then, peeking from behind the landing gear of the Blackbird. Apparently, he had overheard it all and found it as difficult to believe as all the others. The last reaction they expected from Tony was gratitude, and no that they were witnessing it in spades, none were sure what the proper reaction should be. Before said merrymaking could occur, it was quashed by Tony's interruption.

"That's not the only news I have." Iron Man said. "I got a hit on Gatsby. You need to come see it. I have the techs prepping a Quinjet now."

Without further instruction, the full team trailed after Stark from the bay of the helicarrier to the lab. The big screen showed the comparison between two photographs. One was the retinal scan image offered by Clint's nanotech. The second was a fuzzier display from a security camera. There was a location stamped above it, reading Chase Bank with a date and time beneath it. Tony indicated the bank image with a flourish of his hand.

"Introducing Charles Orlando Catz. He's a banker and investor, claiming to be a born and raised Italian nationalist. According to some clever work on my part," Tony swiped a hand across the screen and displayed a set of financial records dating back over thirty years. "He is, in fact, from a little town in Iowa."

Clint didn't wait for Tony to read the name of the town. He approached the picture and looked more closely into the eyes of the man who had taken him. Was this possible? He read the word, Waverly, and suddenly, memories he knew weren't simply implanted, came back to him.

He remembered sitting on the bank of the big river with his brother, their fishing poles made out of long willow sticks with their shoe strings tied to the ends, and nothing but Big League Chew gum for bait. He rolled his pant legs up to his knees, and waded in after frogs to scare his brother with. Then his brother would be after him with the fishing pole, whipping the back of his legs until they pulsed red. After fishing, came the long walks home after the dragonflies had all died down and the lightning bugs danced along the grass of the old golf center. They would cut through Mr. Rivendell's lawn to get to their own, and jump the back chain link fence without disturbing the metal trashcans full of his father's bottles and his mother's cigarettes. Mother . . . he called her _Madre_, soaking up her every Italian idiosyncrasy. The house always smelled the same. It was ash and Italian, _Madre_ said, pressing her red lips to their foreheads when they walked in through the back door.

"_Bello_. _Bello_." She would say, scissoring the butt of the menthol in one hand as the other mixed the pasta. Clint still couldn't stand the smell of ravioli, and rarely tolerated its noodle counterpart. Meatballs were strictly off limits.

Memories he never wanted, the ones he'd buried deep enough to never reach again, suddenly welled up like a flood behind a shattered levee. His father's shouts, the feel of the belt smacking down against his arm, Barney pushing him in the way. Hiding beneath the bed. Breaking glass. Thrown objects. Screams. The ever present, _"Bello, bello"._

_"Bello, Bello."_

So similar, so close to that resonating whisper from his waking nightmares_: "Bella, Bella."_

"Barney." Clint whispered, not believing it himself. Even saying the name wasn't enough to make it true. Not this time. This wasn't like the scene of a scary movie when a creature is summoned from its grave at the whisper of a name. This was a ghost from times long forgotten.

"Clint?" Tony asked. He had been talking, explaining the results of his hours of searching, but the archer missed all of it. Stark saw Clint go pale as death. Frightened he may produce another seizure, he seized hold of Clint's cast to steady him.

"Whoa, what's happening? Are you hearing me? Bruce, grab that chair!"

Clint let them guide him into a seat. His mind was still back there. Back in Waverly, Iowa with the small town halls, the spring time fairs, and the Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders every third week of May and last week of August.

"Barney." Clint said again. "I just . . . I can't believe it. It can't be him. He's dead, it's not him."

Steve grabbed a glass of water from behind Stark's desk and passed it to Natasha. They had no way of knowing if this was a false memory they were dealing with or a revelation. Steve took no chances either way. Natasha approached as Tony cautiously backed away. Bruce's hand rested on the intercom, ready to call in the white coated men with the flak juice if it became necessary.

Natasha leaned on the table in front of Clint, partially obscuring his view of the screen behind her. It forced his eyes to un-focus from its penetrating gaze on the man called Gatsby. Catz was as far from the truth as that nickname had been. Clint knew what was right, now that he was conscious and clear headed enough to think. He took the water Natasha handed to him and tried to collect his thoughts so he wouldn't sound as deranged as his mind tried to make him out to be.

He sipped the water and slowly spoke. "Gatsby is not Charles Orlando Catz. His name is Charles Bernard Barton. He enlisted in the Army when he got fed up with the circus, and the last thing I ever heard of him was that he was dead." Clint's eyes focused on Natasha's for another brief, painful moment before slipping left to behind her ear again. "He was working undercover for the FBI for a while, but one of his missions blew up in his face and he was killed in the line of duty. I thought he was dirty until his higher ups put a call in to tell me the truth. He was working undercover at the time."

Natasha spoke for the team, who wisely hung back. For them, it was news that Clint had any family. Only Natasha had known Clint had a brother in life. "When's the last time you saw him?"

Another taste of the water. Clint let the fluid siphon through his teeth as he absorbed it all. "Eight years ago. He needed me to buy him out of some gambling debts. Big ones. That's when I found out about the racketeering ring he was tied up in, and I did what I could to get him out of it. I didn't realize then he was FBI. He didn't know I was SHIELD. He wanted to find Trick Shot. I didn't know why. I hadn't seen him, but that wasn't good enough for Barney. We had a couple of swings at each other before we both left on our feet and not exactly feeling the brotherly affection. I got the call a week later that he was killed in the racketeering bust."

Natasha easily steered the conversation. "Did you see the body?"

"At the funeral, it was an open casket. Four slugs in the chest, one of which was a scatter of buckshot from a three feet distance. I was pretty sure my brother was dead, until just now." Clint said.

"What makes you believe this guy is him? How sure are you?"

Clint placed the water on the floor and stood from the chair. He moved around her to indicate the dual screen shots of the man. "I wasn't sure until I saw this. He's had work done. Barney was swiped by a tiger once, our third show in. Someone fixed the scars. Altered his nose. But that - " Clint pointed out the nearly imperceptible white line splitting the center of the man's left ear lobe. "I did that to him. Arrow got away from me when I was twelve. Barney wanted to play William Tell. Trick nearly tanned my hide over it."

"Trick?" Natasha prodded gently.

"Trick Shot." Clint elaborated. He turned away from the photo now. Everyone was watching him. Bruce's hand dropped from the intercom. "He's the man that trained me to shoot. Everything I know, I learned from Trick in the circus. Hours, sixteen, twenty at a time. All in a row. If I wasn't shoveling crap out of the menagerie, or bouncing at the games tables, I was shooting targets with Trick. Barney was jealous of that. Drove him off."

"What could he possibly want with the 0-8-4 from the Guest House? Why go through all those measures just to try and pull it out of you?"

Clint shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know. But it does explain how he knows so much about me. Us. Nat, eight years ago was when you first came on board. He could have had access to the files then. Hell, I could have told him about you back then. The house I remembered was like our own house back in Iowa growing up. The Tower just happens to look the same way. I guess that's why it always felt like home."

"You're really serious about this." Tony said, stunned. Clint changed from looking at Natasha's left ear to the billionaire. The relief was not difficult to miss.

"Yes, I'm serious." Clint said.

"No false memories? No implants? This guy is honest-to-God Charles Barton?" Tony pressed, stepping toward him.

Clint shrugged. "I can sign that in blood if you like."

"I might."

Bruce interrupted them. "What are you thinking, Tony?"

"Only if this guy really is Clint's long lost brother, what is he doing playing torture conductor on him? What's his end game in this? You said he was FBI before, that means he was on our side. If he passed eight years ago, obviously someone in AIM got a hold of him and now he's working with the crazy Dr. Frankensteins. Unless he's a double agent. Or a triple agent. Which would make him still evil in the end, wouldn't it?"

Clint shook his head. "Barney never really saw eye-to-eye with me. I don't know how he got himself in good with the FBI but he isn't wrapped too tight. He's hazardous."

Bruce took Clint's chair and flopped himself down into it instead. "You see, I hid in Calcutta to get away from this crazy espionage crap."

Steve said, "Tony, we need to find out what that 0-8-4 was. If we can I.D. it, maybe this will all start to make sense."

Bruce for once, beat Tony to the answer. "That would help, except the minute it was mentioned, every single SHIELD file on the subject was burned. Apparently, we weren't the only one's looking into the Guest House."

"Who else was?" Clint asked.

Tony shrugged. "Just a couple SHIELD agents, their copies were burned the minute ours were."

"You have a location on this guy?" Natasha asked, indicated Clint's would-be brother.

"Temporary, yes. Quinjet should be prepped and ready. Hoping he doesn't move we should be able to intercept." Tony looked over at Cap and Thor. "You two ready for a little sightseeing?"

"I'm flying." Clint said.

Bruce squashed the notion instantly. "Oh no, you aren't! Do I have to remind you that yesterday you had a seizure? And someone tap danced in your skull? You and I are sticking behind."

"I'll fly." Natasha corrected.

Before Clint's protests and bribes could be considered, Steve, Natasha, Thor, and Tony were already gone, leaving Clint and Bruce in the lab alone.

* * *

OH MY GOODNESS! I hope that packed as big of a wallop as I wanted it to! Natasha's reaction...Thor's proposal parade... The man who trained Hawkeye . . . . and Barney Barton? What will happen next?

please review!


	12. Chapter 11

OMG please please read and review. the craziness about to happen is going to BLOW YOUR MIND!

* * *

Chapter 11

It was a wet morning. A storm blew through the town the night before, threatening to turn into a tornado with the sheer force of its wind. The late days of August were drawing to a close and, with it, the humidity and heat were cranked up. This summer was not about to let go without a fight. The school year approached, and Clint had yet to find it in his heart to care. He knew that meant books, learning, and getting strapped into a metal and wood desk chair until the late hours of the afternoon. If he got to class early enough on day one, he could stake out the chair by the window as his personal space. At least that would be better than the dark corner by the teacher's desk.

His brother and he stole into their parents' room, inspecting the state of, first, their father, and then their mother. They had to be silent. To disturb the sleeping beast would lead to the worst possible beating they could incur. Barney was the older, and therefore braver, of the two. He got the closest.

Pitching over his father's face, the boy inhaled. His nose twitched at the familiar odor of hops. He aimed a slight nod to Clint. The younger son crept toward his mother. A cigarette burned the color of a sun set between her left fingers, leaving a second hole in the already pock-marked comforter. He first extracted the lit stick from her tarry grasp and stomped it out on the glass ash tray. Sensing the movement, his mother's eyes eased open. They were like staring into aquamarine. People, who claimed to remember Clint's mother, would remark how alike his eyes were to hers. She smiled at him, batting those lashes like two black fans. Her thin hand pressed against his face.

"_Mio figlio bello_." She whispered. My beautiful son.

"_Madre_." Clint whispered.

Barney moved around the side of his bed, like a thief avoiding capture. He tugged Clint's arm along his way. If they were going to the river they had to set off before the rain got them. There was no time to delay. Their mother pulled both boys to her, pressed a kiss on both of their foreheads, and let them go. She rolled away from them, back into the arms of the husband she meant to keep appeased and asleep. Rushing from the front of the house, Barney took his time to ease the screen door into place. Both boys knew, the minute the door slapped against the house unimpeded, the bear in their mother's bed would rouse and be after them. They struck across the rose bed, digging their fishing rods out of the dirt and using an old coffee tin to drop the dawn worms inside. Across the chain fence, Mr. Rivendell was already up and moving for the newspaper at the end of his drive.

"There they are, the Barton boys!" He said, loud enough for them to hear, but low enough to keep their escape between them.

Barney saluted the Korean War vet. He jabbed an elbow into his brother. "Get the paper, snot-head, I've got the bait."

That was Barney's manner. He took after their father in all the wrong ways. Clint's unfailing loyalty made him blind to the truth of it. Clint carefully climbed the low chain link, and did as Barney said. He hiked the fishing rods over his shoulder, and retrieved the paper from the mail box before dropping the print into the basket Rivendell installed on his walker.

"There you go, sir." Clint said.

The old man ruffled a hand through Clint's buzzed hair, thanked him, and then turned in small circles to face his porch again. As the old man headed in, Barney hopped the fence and, together, they struck down the dirt road for the river. The long days of summer were coming to an end. Soon, the yellow school busses would line the streets, and the ongoing little lives the Barton brothers lived would change for the new school year. Some things would stay the same; the drinking of their father, the smoking of their mother, the Italian words mixing into the meatballs and spaghetti sauce, catching worms and not catching fish on the weekends with his brother. These were slated to never change...or so the boys thought.

They came back when the light went down. The rain had come and gone with the sun and clouds all day. They met up with Jim Thompson from a few houses down, and his sister Sam. Between not catching fish, they played cowboys and Indians, or cops and robbers, running wild in the woods like the children they were. When the first pink sky displayed the coming of night, Jim's mom stood on her metal porch, and blew her whistle like a woman possessed. Sam and Jim started on home, Clint and Barney following behind.

The car was missing from the driveway. Their father had a tendency to go out about noon on days he didn't work to supply himself for his weekly drinking. The screen door slapped closed as they entered to house. There was no smell of food this time. No fresh trail of white ash from the living room to kitchen. No mother behind the stove, stirring, stirring, stirring.

"_Madre_?" Barney called into the house.

"I hid the poles." Clint said, coming in behind his brother. "Where is everyone?"

"_Madre_?" Barney called again, leaving the living room/kitchen to check the bedroom he shared with Clint. Last, he looked in his parents' room, finding no one.

Clint stood in the hall. "Where are they?" he asked again.

"Probably ran away 'cause they couldn't stand you." Barney said bitterly. "_Madre's_ not here."

"Where did she go?" Clint asked, looking around. There was nothing in the kitchen pulled out. Last night's dishes were piled the sink, never touched. Empty bowls of cereal filled in warm milk were on the counter.

"I don't know." Barney said.

"Is she coming back?" Clint asked.

"I don't know."

Clint's young mind couldn't comprehend his words. His mother was gone. His father too, but that remained a much less serious matter. Mother, Madre, she mattered. It was his fault she left? Did Clint do something wrong? Did he forget to wash his dishes? Make his bed? Did he forget to say he loved her when they left each other that morning? Dew drop tears started at the crevices of his eyes.

"When is she coming back?

"Probably never." Barney stated as if he knew. He knew everything. He was older.

The younger son went back to the front door, and stared out into the coming dark. His mother didn't often leave the house. He only saw her in public on rare occasions, and always with them or their father. She was always home to greet them after the long summer days. To not see her, struck a fear in his heart Clint did not like. It was a fear he would live with for the next three days.

Barney found them left overs in the fridge for dinner. Clint ate his cold, not trusting himself to operate the stove properly and receiving no help from his brother on the matter. No one tucked him in that night and the storm from the day before returned with a fury. He curled beneath his small blanket, waiting desperately for the slap of the screen door against the molding that would herald the return of his mother. But no one came. The only thing moving the door was the bitter wind.

In the morning, the car had yet to return. Barney made their breakfast, cereal in souring milk. They considered going to the river, but feared leaving meant they may miss their mother's arrival. So they stayed inside and waited. They waited throughout the first day and night, into the next, and lastly a third. Jim and Sam knocked on their door, but neither of the Barton brothers came out. Mr. Rivendell became concerned before all the other neighbors. He stared at the boys from his porch, wheeling his way back and forth from his mail box to retrieve the paper every morning. When the car never returned, he knew he must do something and he called the local sheriff.

The bodies had yet to be identified. The Barton parents were on their way home from town, when the father, drunk behind the wheel, veered into the slick part of the rain soaked highway. They hit a tree four miles from home. Neither parent survived. There wasn't an attempt to parade the boys into the morgue to identify the bodies of their parents. The mother was thrown through the window, her body broken across the embankment and left in the elements until she was discovered the next morning. The father's trajectory had been stopped by the steering wheel in his chest. The low tree limbs shattered the bones of his face.

Clint remembered standing outside his screen door, looking into the world that was never perfect. That would never be the same again. He didn't want to leave. His young life wasn't what it should have been, but what did he know? He tried to remember his mother's face. He wanted something to hold on to beside the Italian, the smell of her cigarettes, and the few clothes in his old back pack. He had a single photo. He didn't want to fold it, but that was the only way it fit into his pocket. His brother pulled the old Princeton diploma of their father's off the wall. It was one of the only good things the man had ever done.

As the adult Clint stood in the infirmary of the Heli-carrier alone, he stared into the medicine chest on the wall with the same look he once gave the home he left all those years ago. He allowed time, to work like a drug. It made him forget, bury all those hard memories deep down where he would never reach them again. All those emotions he felt in the loss of his nonexistent family rose again. Only this time, he felt the heart of it, the truth hiding behind the lies. And he decided he couldn't take it.

He reached into the medicine cabinet and rolled the labels toward him. He recognized a few from his medical file. The ones his own brother let those men shoot him up with. He considered them, like he might decide between brands of juice in the morning or varieties of eggs. Clint was familiar with men he'd brought in high on PCP before. He didn't like the look of them. Ketamine was different. The doctors kept it in a separate lock box away from the others, but there was little anyone could do to keep him out once he wanted in.

For a while, he just held the glass bottle in his hand. He turned his fingers over the outside as he decided what he was going to do next. He knew what he wanted to do and it made no sense for him to delay it. He already laid the syringe on the counter, ready to be used. It was the smallest needle size he could find. Beside it he set an iPad he'd taken from the tech center. He knew the dose he planned to inject himself with, and he knew where to give it. But still he stood there, turning the label over in his hands.

He took a deep breath to steady his courage. Only six months ago this very act would be the most despicable thing in his mind. Injecting himself with drugs was one thing; operating the syringe to do it himself was an entirely different matter. He buried those fears now with hard work and perseverance. Resolved to the task, he grabbed the rubber tubing to his old fluid line and circled it around his bicep.

Clint became so distracted by the darkness in his mind; he missed hearing Bruce approaching to check on him. Once exiting the elevator, Banner could see the broken lock on the chain he'd secured to the infirmary door. He sped up, stopping outside the door before he went in. Clint's back was to him, the bottle in his grasp, and the unused needle still on the tray. At first, Bruce meant to rush into the room. He wanted to stop Clint before the archer made the worst mistake of his life, but at the same time Bruce wanted to wait for Clint to make his own decision. Worried with indecision, Bruce hesitated.

Clint continued to stare. He was no longer focused on the drugs in his hands, but instead on those memories haunting his mind. The two little boys, Aaron and Phil, Clint and Barney. The loving mothers Natasha and Edith. The fathers… Clint's mind was jumbled with the difficult thoughts pulsing through his brain. He needed to put the memories back in place. He wanted to stop feeling, get back to that happiness. This was a way to do it.

Then the tide broke. With the glass bottle balled in his hand, he hurled it across the room. It shattered in a thousand pieces against the wall. The iPad, the tube on his arm, and then the tray went next. He grabbed the top of the wall cabinet and, between his broken arm and his good one, he managed to pry it off. The glass exploded against the floor, and he barely avoided impaling his legs with the shards.

He stalked out of the room. Bruce managed to shift out of his way before the two collided. Clint was clearly surprised to see him.

"You were just going to stand there?!" Clint growled. The sudden adrenaline rush made him want to grab Bruce by the throat and break him two.

The scientist put his hands up carefully. "Easy, Clint. If you actually needed me I was going to help. But you didn't."

The bite didn't escape Clint's voice. "Give me another four seconds, and I would have."

"No, you wouldn't."

Unconvinced, Clint pushed his way past. As he trudged his way back to his quarters, he said over his shoulder, "Get a better lock for that door."

Bruce watched him go for a moment, before looking at the carnage the raging Clint left in his wake. "What for? Looks like you destroyed everything."

:(:):(:):

At first, Clint wanted to go back to his room in an attempt to sleep off his sudden unhappiness with the world. After only a few minutes of heading in that direction, he changed paths. Sleep was not a good idea, not when his mind wasn't exactly his own. What he really needed, was to get out some of this pent up frustration. There were a few easier ways to do that which did not include a bow or a gun. His bow was difficult to pull with the cast, so he settled on the gun.

The shooting range was relatively full. The minute Clint entered the deck, much of the small arms fire died down as the agents turned in his direction. Clint didn't usually have that effect on people. He blamed the Tony Stark cast he was saddled with. Avoiding the stares in his direction, he went over to the munitions desk and checked out the H&K P30 that was his chosen sidearm. Some didn't like its ounce of extra weight, or the way the trigger felt on their finger. For Clint, it was a rare comfort when his bow was out of question. And the P30 could shoot. He could empty the entire .45 mag in little less than ten seconds if his finger was fast enough, and he wasn't aiming too carefully. When he took his time, the gun stayed just as precise as he wanted it to be, whether that meant shooting Nick Fury in the breast plate or not. Today, he was not in the mood to take it easy.

His gun privileges hadn't been revoked by the medical docs yet, meaning the desk sergeant had no idea Barton had just spent the previous afternoon holding one of the nurses hostage. Typically, that meant he was grounded from munitions work for at least a week. This time he didn't resort to begging and bribery to get his gun check out. With a full box of slugs, a loaded gun, and devil-may-care attitude, Clint was ready to decimate some silhouettes.

A few of the other agents resumed their own target practice as Clint stepped into his own cubicle. Others stepped back to watch him. He knew their likely reason for watching him was curiosity. Would Hawkeye be planning a shooting spree this time? Would he lose his senses and go crazy? The archer ignored them. He loaded his gun, check to see he had a fresh target, and opened fire.

He remembered, after the first shot, he wasn't wearing ear protection. It didn't matter. In the field, he didn't have that luxury either and, with his current mood, he was not about to stop firing just to accommodate his sense of hearing. Mainly, he didn't have a sense of hearing. He reached into his ears and removed the pin point aural devices and set them in his pocket. Deafened, absorbed in a world all his own, he emptied the first mag. He inserted the spare. He emptied the second, opened the box of live fire rounds, filled both clips and repeated.

A small crowd unashamedly gathered in a ring behind him. They watched him work like a man possessed. First one mag, then the next. Thirty bullets shot. He paused, reloaded, and shot again. His cubicle was covered in smoking shell casings. The gun jammed three times, but true to the P30 form, it jammed without blowing his hand apart. It took ten minutes for him to finish the small munitions box of a thousand rounds. When he finished, he turned to look past the ring of agents to the desk sergeant.

"Thousand is the quota for two days. I was being generous when I gave you the whole box." The man said.

Clint turned back to his target. Did he feel it worth his while to bribe for more? He felt better. That was good enough. Taking the aural transmitters from his pocket he took his time to replace them. He grabbed the empty box and the P30, and left both with the sergeant.

"Sorry for the mess." He mumbled.

"I'll get the boys to it, Clint." He replied gently.

Surprised with his tone, Clint managed to look him in the eye. There it was, the pity waiting to look back at him.

"What's your problem?" Clint demanded.

The man smiled. "Oh, there's the attitude. I was wondering where it got to. You done killing things for a while or should I have the Director swing over a pod of whales?"

Clint knew the man was a ballbuster. "You know, duty sergeant is in season, isn't it?"

"No, Barton, its wabbit season."

Clint snickered. He was feeling better. He went for the door, waving goodbye as he went. "I'll see ya later, Bull."

"Bull?" the sergeant called after him.

Clint turned at the door. "Yeah - " he stopped himself. The duty sergeant's name was Mike Durquest. He'd known him for four years already. Clint imagined these little lapses were going to follow him for a while. He decided to play on it this time at least. "Yeah, Bull. Cause that's exactly what you're full of."

"Oh, get out of here!" Durquest chased him out in a friendly way. He motioned for one of the janitors to start scooping up Clint's litter, but before he had a chance to sit, one of the agent's approached with Clint's target in hand. The gaggle of onlookers followed him.

"You ever seen anything like that?" the agent remarked, holding up the black on white figure. "Man shoots a kill shot straight off the bat, right through the center of this guy's skull and uses a thousand others round just to keep missing. You ever see something like that, Mike?"

The duty sergeant took the offered paper and held it up to the light. He knew what he was likely to find, and was not surprised when he saw it. Especially coming from a target Hawkeye had used. He handed the target back.

"The man didn't miss." Durquest said. "That's Hawkeye you're talking about. He shot one hole and put all the other ones through it. Edges are all tapered. Bet if you go back there and look at the ballistics gel you'll find them all just like I said it."

The agent looked at the paper again. He could see it now, the slight arcs around the hole that produced the only evidence that more than a single bullet entered the break.

"A thousand rounds." Men whispered, looking at the piles of casings being swept from the floor. "Man fires a thousand rounds, hardly looking, all in the same hole."

:(:):(:):

He didn't like how his life had become a whirlwind of movement. Rushing first in one direction and then the other. Climbing the mountain of a happy life, then falling into the darkness of a potential drug addiction. Of course, beside that were the deep shadows of a former life he had all but forgotten. Now, sitting in the back of a quinjet and not in the pilot's seat was enough to shake him apart. Bruce's steady grip never left his knee.

"I wish they'd let me fly." Clint whispered for perhaps the twelfth time.

"It's better this way. We should get there in time for you to see him." Bruce told him.

Clint lifted his hands to his face. Why was he being put through this?

"What did Tony say?"

"Your brother's off. They tried to catch him right off, but he left out the back dressed as an ambulance worker. Three blocks down, he switched suits and cars. I never thought there could be another man out there as good as you, Clint, but somehow the world made one. Buck Chisholm is still in bed. They've kept him on the respirators."

A shudder went through his body at the thought of it. It was too much to think of, really. He had just finished littering the shooting range in gun casings when Bruce came to find him. Tony called. He was supposed to say how well the ambush went, and that Charles Barton had been taken into custody, and the Avengers were transporting him to the Heli-carrier for questioning. What he reported changed everything. There was no standoff. Charles simply slipped out the back door without anyone ever realizing it. He made it passed Natasha Romanov not once but twice and even shared words with Steve Rogers before he disappeared into the broad light of day.

Disappointed did not encompass their feelings. Two SHIELD teams were sent out to cordon off the immediate area, but knowing Clint's ease of disappearance there was no reason to believe Charles wasn't of similar caliber. But they did find something else. A man registered into the hospital under the name of Buck Chisholm, and he was the only patient in the hospital visited by the alias Clint's brother used. The minute the name was mentioned, Clint identified him. Trick Shot. His old mentor and trainer. The one who shaped his entire future and the man who betrayed him as well.

Clint rubbed his face with his palm. His skin crawled again. Only twenty four hours after his last dose of medication, and his body was trying to fight him again. He felt jittery and nervous. He knew most of it came from just plain nervousness as he hadn't seen Trick Shot in a decade. Tony had already spoken with him, albeit briefly. The conversation revealed that Trick Shot was dying. Cancer. He didn't elaborate what kind, but then he didn't need to. Clint had already been down this path with him once.

"It wasn't a surprise to you." Bruce said, attempting to keep Clint talking.

Clint shook his head. "No, it wasn't. He had it bad, years back. The drinking and smoking didn't agree with him. He didn't want it like this. In a hospital bed, I mean. He sought me out, tried to take me out. We fought. I almost killed him, until I realized that was exactly what he wanted. He's a stubborn old man. I got him help instead. I heard he went into remission, and that's the last time we spoke. I thought I buried him deep, like Barney."

"Lately, a lot of people you thought you buried seem to be coming back to life. Anyone else in your past you ticked off that you want to tell us about?"

"No, not unless my dead father crawls out of the grave." Clint replied. "When's this going to end?"

"It'll get better." Bruce squeezed his knee again.

The hospital was located in the Lower East Side of Los Angeles. The plane touched down at LAX, and was met on the tarmac by Tony's private security detail, and friend, Happy. Clint gave him a small wave with his good hand.

"Agent Barton, sure glad to see you, sir. In one piece, I mean." Happy said.

"Good to see you too, Happy." Clint replied. There was a car waiting with the back door already pulled open. Before Clint and Bruce could think of climbing in, a tumbling streak of gold and black fur flew out the door. Clint was hit with the full impact of a nearing two hundred pound animal. His dog, or wolf really, barked and whined incessantly at the sight of his master's return. His tail was tucked firmly between his legs, as he closed in around Clint's feet and rolled onto his back. He might have looked like a German shepherd with the hologram on his collar Tony and Bruce incessantly tweaked with, but Clint and everyone close to him knew the truth.

"Hi Arrow." Clint said, with more emotion than he thought possible. How could he have forgotten his friend? He chalked that up to the "worst dog owner ever" category in his mind. Half a second after the furry body hit him, someone came screaming out. All Clint saw was the streak of strawberry red ponytail on the woman who attached herself to his neck.

"Oh, Clint, we were so worried!" Pepper exclaimed. She pulled back to look at him, noticing Tony's artwork instantly. "Were you conscious when he did that to you?"

Clint smirked. "What do you think?"

"You helped him too, didn't you?" Pepper glared at Bruce.

Bruce looked up at the sky, suddenly fascinated with a passing cloud, while Arrow sat up and began licking at the strange colorful material attached to his master.

"And your arm - " Pepper whispered, taking Clint's better hand in hers. The bright purple and blue track marks were impossible to hide. He should have opted for long sleeves, but none of his shirts fit over the cast.

"It's fine. I'm better." Clint said.

"Don't believe him, he's struggling right now." Bruce interrupted.

"Agent?" Happy claimed their attention and motioned to the open car door. Rather than continue to stand on the tarmac and catch up, they climbed into the waiting car. The interior resembled a Rolls Royce, but with two sets of back seats facing each other. With Arrow's tail pulled in and the wolf cutting off the circulation to Clint's feet, Happy closed the doors behind them and circled to the driver's seat. They were heading into the city within minutes of landing.

Bruce was left to his own devices on the seat directly behind Happy, while Pepper took the spot available on Clint's left. She pulled his hand into her lap and laced her fingers between his. Her eyes normally enjoyed watching the scenery go by, but not this time. Tony's girl was focused on the deep, painful bruises on the backs of his hand and his wrist. He considered taking it away from her, but she could have a good grip when she wanted to. Arrow tucked his head on Clint's lap, and stared up at him with two coal black eyes.

"It's all right." Clint whispered to her. He turned her fingers over, and noticed an interesting new ring on her right hand. The diamond was gorgeous. "This from Tony?"

"Not yet, it isn't." She said back.

"I bet that was something to see." Bruce commented. It was his hope to keep the mood light. They all knew what they were driving toward. A ghost of Clint's past, dredged up, dragged from a grave he'd been thrown into long ago, and now Clint was meeting him again, only to watch as he struggled to die. Tony had called Bruce privately, warned him about the reality of this Buck Chisholm's condition. Ruthless, Tony put it. That was his opinion on, not only the man, but also the situation. Bruce wanted to prepare Clint for it, but wasn't exactly sure how. With Pepper to lessen the blow, this may just be the time.

"Have you seen him yet?" Clint asked.

"Not yet, no. I just got off the plane. I wanted to wait for you. Happy had someone drive the car down so we could leave directly from the airport when you hit the ground. I knew you wouldn't want to waste any time."

This was the opportunity.

"About that," Bruce said. "Clint, I think it's unfair if I don't tell you something of what Tony made me aware of."

"Well, let's try and make that more ominous." Pepper complained.

"All right." Clint squeezed her hand a little in his.

Bruce leaned forward, removed his glasses, and rubbed the brim of his nose. "The cancer. You said you had been through this with him once before."

"A few years ago. Well, ten years. He came to me. He dredged up some past arguments. We fought, hard. Then, I realized he was trying to get me to pull the one arrow that would kill him." Clint pulled away from Pepper's grasp. This time, she didn't try to stop him.

"He was dying," Clint went on. "Least he was, at the time. Trick Shot never wanted it that way. In a hospital bed, hooked to machines, and surrounded by doctors, and everyone he could never stand in real life. He begged me to kill him. Wouldn't do it himself. But, like with Natasha, I made a different call that time. I found him help in return for his help with a few outstanding SHIELD investigations. He went into remission, and then he disappeared. He tends to do that in my life."

"Well, it's serious this time. I think you know that if there was anything Tony, or any of us, could do, we would do it." Bruce said.

Clint stiffened. After a time of letting the words sink in, he bobbed his head. "Yes, I know."

"Tony wanted me to tell you that, because it's serious."

"Ok, Bruce."

Tense silence filled the car for the remainder of the drive. No one wanted to be the first to try and change the topic, not when Clint sat so introspectively. Even Arrow took his head from the archer's lap, and instead shoved it between Clint's right leg and the seat. Barton didn't mind the discomfort. It was enough to have the joy of Arrow back with him. He attempted to find a center. So great was his intensity, that he fell back into an old habit they hadn't heard from him in a long, long time.

"Clint Barton." He whispered, closing his eyes. He faced the window, letting the warm sunlight flush his face. "I am an Avenger. Hawkeye. Avenger. Top shot. Archery. Good guy." He took a deep breath, held it in his lungs, and slowly exhaled against the glass. A few minutes later, he repeated the order.

Bruce glanced toward his friend, and Pepper. He was trying very hard to help keep Clint together. He could only hope this was not the point that broke him.

The car screamed through the city streets behind Happy's steady, but fast, direction. Forty five minutes of difficult traffic driving brought them onto the main boulevard leading to the hospital. They passed two police barricades. The officers checked cars, passengers, licenses, and trunks. The manhunt for Charles Barton was not being taken lightly, nor should it be. Happy did the honors of waving his Avenger's associated security clearance and, after inspecting the passengers, the car passed the second barricade.

The hospital may have been a hub of activity a few hours before, but it was obvious, interest in the ward of Buck Chisholm died down. Two detectives stood on the pavement beside the spangled Steve Rogers. No doubt both of them had pockets full of autographs and a few photos snapped by the time Happy pulled beside them and Clint climbed out of the car. The detectives tipped their hats a little, but they retreated a step when Banner exited the car. Bruce had that effect on people.

"He's upstairs." Steve said without waiting to introduce anyone. "Tony and Widow are waiting for you inside. You better go in there now."

"Thor?" Clint asked, not stopping as he walked to the door.

"Still looking. I'm going back out again. Arrow?"

Clint hiked a thumb back to the German shepherd in the car. "Arrow, follow Cap." He ordered.

Clint didn't wait for Steve to reply before he walked into the hospital. If any dog in the city had a chance of finding a runaway hours after the trail went cold, it was the Dire Wolf. Steve whistled, and the dog climbed out behind Pepper. Before he left, he set his hand on Bruce's arm.

"Watch out for him. I don't like this, Bruce. I think we need to seriously discuss that plan we have in motion, if you know what I mean."

Bruce nodded tightly.

"What plan?" Pepper demanded.

Steve briefly glanced at her, but said nothing. With Arrow trotting beside him, he headed down the sidewalk. The detectives followed.

:(:):(:):

In a situation such as this, one would expect to find the lights dimmed, a ring of mourners sitting at the foot of a bed with a priest in black cloth praying in a corner. Doctors, with their stethoscopes armed and ready, would wait like grim reapers to collect the remains, after the soul at last evacuated. Perhaps, there would be candles. Certainly tears and Kleenexes. Clint had seen a few friends, close friends, die in the past. He'd been at their sides, whether in the heat of battle, or sitting by some put-together bed. He held them as they went. He was always changed afterward, as if carrying a piece of them on his shoulder for better or worse for the rest of his life.

Seeing Trick Shot again, lying in bed, wheezing against a struggling air of smoker's lungs, hit him hard. Those ever reaching memories sailed back at him. Times when he spent hour upon hours, standing in the pouring rain or freezing snow until his fingers bled against the string of his bow, Trick stood right there over his shoulder.

_"Can't quit now, Barton, if you do I might as well run you off."_

_"What's a guy need a smart-mouthed brat for."_

_"No wonder your parents went off and killed themselves. They couldn't stand the sight of this. You missed the center again."_

_"You missed again, Barton. Can't say I'm surprised."_

_"You'll never be one of the great ones. You'll never be like me."_

_"Pull the string one more time. Pull it or just quit. Be a quitter."_

_"You're not my son, Hawkeye. I've got to push you. Do you understand me? Do it again. Aim higher, pull your shoulders together. You're getting it. Try it again. Try it, or I'm wasting my life and yours."_

When Clint considered his past, he had to admit to having only one father in his life. That title belonged to Phil Coulson. As for Trick Shot, and the man that contributed to his gene pool . . . they were stepping stones; men who helped him get to where he was now, and nothing more. Harold Barton was an abusive drunk who beat him more than loved him. Trick Shot may have agreed to take him on and train him, but in the end, Clint realized his pain, was Trick's gain. The man fed off of it like a sadistic psychopath, and nearly led Clint right into his own ruin. Every time he reappeared in his life, the world spiraled further and further out of control. This was the end of that great age of his past.

Tony met him outside the hospital room door and ushered him inside. It was bright, not dim. Aseptic. He could smell the thick applications of Clorox on the floor, mixing with the rotting exhalation of two necrotic lungs. Natasha stood over Trick Shot's bed. Her face was angled slightly away. Clint could sense her discomfort, but waited for his direction to take her leave. This wasn't her talent. Watching these moments of raw emotion normal people dealt with weighed roughly upon her. Her life surrounded itself in avoiding this so when Clint asked her to leave and she was willing to stay he understood at once how things changed between them. She would have stayed if he hadn't insisted.

On her way out, she paused by Stark's arm.

"Coming?" she asked.

Tony shook his head.

She walked out without him.

Clint crossed to Trick Shot's left for a moment, and then retreated to the end of the bed. His mentor's eyes were shut, but that meant little to the younger archer. The man's mind worked easily, fluidly, even if the cancer chewed him up from the inside out. He didn't need Clint's introduction to know he was there.

His voice was thick, like a sound trying to crawl its way out of a decaying log. The deep baritone dropped an octave, and slithered out with an unnatural hiss of the respirator.

"Hawk. Eye." He drew the name out, creating independent words. His lips peeled back, exposing what few teeth remained as blackened pegs. "Sssooo...the boy grew up."

"Trick Shot." Clint replied. He leaned forward, placing his forearms on the railing at the foot of the bed. His eyes searched forward, waiting to see what remained of Trick's beneath his leathery lids. Tony remained in the shadow of the doorway.

Trick wheezed three times in short, sharp, barks, the only laugh he could manage now. "Tttrick. Shot. Still the old, old, names, Hawk. Eye."

"You were never anything else to me. You were always better. The best." Clint replied quietly.

A scarecrow hand lifted from the sheet and played in the air. "Flattery gets men nowhere. You. Know. That."

Clint nodded. "Yes, I know it."

Tony eased a little further into his shadow. He had a sinking feeling he was getting a glimpse into a conversation that started a long time ago, one that two once friends, and now enemies, started but never finished. Clint had come to surprise him many times these last few days together. Standing there, watching these two men, reminded him of a movie reel. Playing out before him was the reality of Clint's past none of them wanted to really face. Darkness, frozen hearts, and death, that's what he came from. Those were the things that made him bump in the night. Knowing it and seeing it were two very different visceral emotions.

The titan's eyes opened. They were wide, dilated. It gave him an unnaturally black quality. With the ashen skin, he resembled the very grim reaper which surely waited on the other side for him.

"Bigger than I thought, Hawk. Eye." He hissed. "I sssee you sometimes. Out in the world. Savin' folks you think deserve it." The eyes slid closed and open in exaggerated blinks as he inhaled long, shallow breaths. "Ever regret it?"

"No." Clint said quietly. "You know that I don't."

"I feel 'em."

Clint didn't respond. It was as if being in the presence of his old mentor bestowed on him the patience of Job. Even his hands, rebelling from withdrawal, stilled at last.

The gnarled hand eased back to Trick Shots chest where it clawed against the hospital gown. "Demons. Risin' to get me. Been waiting too long." He inhaled, wheezed, exhaled. "Wasss your fault, Hawk. Eye. You could have stopped thissss. You know it."

"I know. And I wouldn't." Clint replied. "Wasn't right to ask it of me, either."

"Ask?!" the room burst with the barking, gasping hacks as blood and sputum mixed against the side of his pillow. Still, Clint did not go to him.

"Ask." He repeated when the fit was over. "I didn't ask. I put an arrow in your . . . chest, and told you . . . to give it back."

"You knew I wouldn't." Clint eyes narrowed. Tony considered going to him. The tension fed into his hands, making them fists.

"You didn't have it in you." Trick spat harshly at him. "A waste. A wassste training you. Putting in that time for nothing. For a good for nothing snot-nosed brat. Better off with Barney. Should . . . should have just done it sooner."

Clint straightened at once. Tony sailed toward him, should his friend attempt to swing at the dying man. He wouldn't blame him if he did, but there was no way it could help their case. With a single gesture, Clint kept Tony back.

"You didn't! Trick, don't tell me that. Don't tell me you did." the archer demanded.

The black pegs reemerged beneath the scaly lips. "Can feel 'em, Hawk. Eye. I feel the claws beneath my ssskin. Feels like brimstone. Tastes like sulfur." The eyes closed and didn't reopen for a long while. "He was harder then you. Stubborn Bartons . . . 'at's what you are. Death of me. You Barton boys."

"Don't say that. Not Barney." Clint abandoned the end of the bed and went to Trick's side. There was a chair already sitting empty for him to fall into. His voice, thick in desperation, came out even before Trick finished speaking.

The black orbits focused on him. "You got a new bow, I hear."

"Stop changing the subject!" Clint shouted. "Charles Barton, my brother, did you teach him how to shoot?!"

The hand lifted from where it scrubbed away the invisible demon claws. The first finger extended toward Clint's chest. "He's got an eye for you. A tip in that quiver, a carbon shaft, and three ssstraight fletchesss." He paused, letting the words hang there. This was his final show. "Tried to save me. Like you once did. In the end days, brothers turn against brothers."

The hand reached out, took Clint's shirt in the dying grip, and drew the archer into the cloud of his putrefying breath. "He's goin' to kill you Hawk. Eye. But he's goin' to burn the whole world away first."

* * *

when i wrote this i gave myself chills.

Clint's horrible childhood! His brother's such a jerk.

please review!


	13. Chapter 12

According to my amazing beta icanhearthedrums an "It's so Fluffy I'm Gonna Die!" moment is about to happen.

2nd to last chapter now!

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Chapter 12

"It's no use looking anymore, we won't find him. You wouldn't find me, so I know you won't find him."

Clint stood by the long glass windows of Tony's renovated Malibu home, taking in the view of the white and blue oceanic peaks that rose and folded back down. Arrow lay on his feet, seemingly asleep. For now, the tense anger, that followed him for the last few days, ebbed away. Stopping and resting, were things he never had a great talent for, especially after life altering missions.

Trick Shot died the way he swore he never would; lying in a hospital bed with a silver pan catching his urine, and his old pupil at his side. His final words, not a warning but a promise, haunted Hawkeye. He wanted time to process it all.

"We know he left the city right before we arrived. I think someone tipped him off." Steve said. He sat on the edge of the couch with his elbows on his knees. Bruce reclined beside him.

"Someone on the inside. Way inside, given the only people who had any idea where we were headed were the six of us, and two SHIELD pilots." Tony said.

"Is this us discussing _that_ again?" Clint turned from the water to consider the looks of his friends.

"Did we ever stop?" Steve posed.

Natasha folded her arms as she leaned against the window behind her. She had been stroking Arrow's back, but now that she stopped, the wolf's head lifted to look at her in disappointment.

"Pepper?" She asked.

"I asked her to go to the office. Happy drove her." Tony said.

"I swept the room myself. If they are tracking this conversation, I'd know, or Arrow would. We both came up with nothing." Bruce added.

"I'm almost insulted." Tony sighed.

"We keep saying _they,_ as if we don't know who _they_ are." Clint complained. "It's Blackstone. I tracked them down once, and all this time, Blackstone has been hanging in the background of our missions as if they were our shadow. Tony, you told me those scientists that grabbed Steve and I fit the profile, and their aliases are on my old lists."

"Let's recap what we do know since everyone is together for once in a long while. I think all of us kind of have a few pieces of it." Steve interrupted to bring the conversation to a suitable head.

Clint slid down the window until he was sitting beside Natasha. Arrow placed his head in the archer's lap, and licked at the cast on his arm. Tony went to his bar, poured himself some Jack Daniels, and motioned for Steve to go ahead.

Steve took his cue. "A little over two years ago, Director Fury assigned Clint to look into an information leak, known as Project Blackstone, at the research institute the Tesseract was being stored in. While there, Clint realized that, not only did someone hack into the information storage house, but they also started channeling high grade weapons tech out of the base and to private store facilities that no one has yet been able to uncover. Natasha?"

The Black Widow shrugged. "I took the information from the file Phil gave us and tracked down all the leads still alive on the list. Three killed themselves before we got to talk. The fourth, and last, went underground...turned into a ghost."

"And what was his name?"

"Professor Ivan Grant."

"One of the men who took Clint and I into custody in Mexico."

She nodded. "One and the same."

"This Professor Ivan Grant was hired by SHIELD to assist Selvig with the Tesseract project, but got fired three months later when he repeatedly tried to access high level security clearance documents. He said it was for after hours research, but he was still let go. A few days later, Loki hit." Steve flipped through the file on the coffee table. It was beginning to fall apart from the many hours the team had spent perusing the information. "When Clint came back to SHIELD after Loki, he didn't remember anything about Blackstone, which didn't make sense until Phil said - "

Clint inserted, "That I was given something called the GH serum. A small hit. It's what kept Phil from dying from Loki's spear, and, apparently, it rewires brains. I wasn't exactly stable after what Loki did, and I think we can all agree I never ended up as bad as Selvig."

Natasha interrupted them with a snort.

"That would explain why." Clint finished shooting her a sideways grin.

"And what were those men looking for when they took us?" Steve prodded.

Bruce answered for them. "The GH serum." He looked intently at Clint. "Your brother wanted it. Buck Chisholm was training him. He was also dying. Maybe he thought that if it saved Phil, maybe it could do the same for him."

"We were transporting tech from the Guest House, it was a safe assumption we had access to the serum. It was an 0-8-4 according to the file, it could have been anything. It could have been Thor's hammer for all we knew." Clint replied, agreeing

Thor smiled from where he was consuming a four layer sandwich on Tony's bar. He had spent two days in East LA, tracking the world over with Steve and Arrow. He deserved whatever the fridge's contents could be spared for his stomach.

"The prune did say something that would go with that, remember, feathers? He said, 'Tried to save me, like you once did.' He knew what the evil twin was after." Tony said.

"We know at least one of these scientists is involved in the Blackstone infiltration of SHIELD. We know they must still be operating, to be as bold as to take two Avengers in broad daylight, Mexico or not. We also know that Clint's brother is working for them, and I think it's safe to say he is a dangerous opponent."

Clint scoffed. "Dangerous, Cap." Arrow lifted his head as Clint stood and walked to the center of the room. "Dangerous is definitely the word for it. You remember what I did for Loki? I almost took the Heli-carrier out of the sky, and would have if Nat didn't knock some sense into me. I helped turn Banner's less agreeable half on friends, and I killed people because I liked the feel of it. If you think that was bad, it is nothing compared to what my brother is capable of."

Clint sat in the chair across from them, and rubbed a finger above his eyebrow. This subterfuge gave him a headache.

"How far would he go?" Bruce asked, genuinely concerned.

"Farther than the Hulk would in a blind rage. Farther than Loki would. Barney's always had a dark streak in him. If Trick's trained him, and I have no doubt he has, then he not only has the heart for it, but the ability as well. We won't find him till he wants to be found, and by then, a lot of people will be dead already. Do I need to remind you how he designed my perfect future, then decided to use Steve to murder my kids in front of me? That's the kind of man we're dealing with."

"But we at least know some of his associates. We know he's working with Blackstone, however deep that goes. If we can trace Blackstone, we can find your Cain." Tony put in. He finished his second glass, and stepped out from behind the bar to join the ring of conversation.

"Blackstone's also deep enough to know about the GH serum and what it did to Agent Coulson. We can't find a scrap of evidence on that either. Now, either Fury buried it, or _they_ did. Since they don't have it, I think it's safe to assume who the culprit was." Bruce said.

"We tried finding them from the inside." Natasha reminded them. "I've been looking into it for a month, and found little more than a couple misused files and low level security threats. They've either learned since the Tesseract attack, or they go much higher than we give them credit for. All we have is that file from Coulson."

"Isn't that why I quit SHIELD? To hunt them down from the outside? Stay under the radar?" Clint asked.

Steve said, "Your brother knowing to get away before we showed up, tells me SHIELD is still infected. Banner and I were talking. We think it's time to take the next step." He glanced toward Tony to see how the news would sink

"Hey don't look at me, I'm not married to feathers."

"But you're close. We all are. If we want to chase this rabbit, it means dividing the team. Clint on deep cover, no direct contact with any of us. And it also means a big, public split."

"Pepper can't know." Clint added.

Bruce agreed. "She's a great girl, but I don't think we could trust her not to track you down."

Clint looked up at Tony who perched on the arm of his chair. "I wonder where she learned that."

Thor, finished with his food, also approached the ring. He stood at Steve's side, looking down on his friends. "This is indeed a trying decision. One that may way heavy upon us if done erroneously. You say that to catch these men, who sought Clint of Barton's life, is to give up our friend to investigate alone. Should trouble befall him, how could we assist?"

"That's the thing of it." Natasha said. Feeling left out as the only one not at the round table, she got to her feet and landed in a spot beside Bruce. "So, big public break up, it is. Clint and Tony screaming match, hits all the papers. Clint already quit SHIELD, and then quits the Avengers. He turns into some street bum kicking around Newark until everyone forgets he ever existed. That the plan?"

"I'll have Arrow for back up. I'll find a place close by. I'm keeping low tech. Asgard weaponry, Tony's figured out how to trace. No doubt SHIELD has too. I'll have to use my regular bow for a while, so don't take offense."

Thor waved off the comment as if it mattered little. "I still do not like not being assured of your safety. Have we not just received you back? What should be our course if you befall some evil or other, that cannot be managed on one's own?"

"Well, that can be it."

Eyes turned to Tony.

"If we need a signal, an emergency beacon, we can use Clint's bow. I'll leave the tracer on in the lab in a back door JARVIS system. If I'm not monitoring it, Bruce can. I'll feed the program into your home network at the university."

Bruce was already nodding as he spoke. "Yeah, that could work. It will work. We should keep it to the two of us though. I want to keep this information as in-house as humanly possible."

The doctor's attention turned to Steve and Natasha. "I think you both understand that with what we've already figured out, SHIELD can't be trusted."

"I think you've _been_ saying that since the night I showed up in Calcutta." Nat flipped up the corner of her mouth as she leaned back in the sofa cushion.

"But you agree this time."

"Jeez. Yes."

Clint leaned toward her. "Look, you might be worried about me on the outside. But you and Steve are still in. I'm dropping off the radar, which means whatever trouble I get into is because I'm not being careful. If Blackstone _does_ still exist, and _is_ still infiltrating SHIELD, then you and Cap are in more danger than I am."

Their eyes were meeting again, and he wasn't in a hurry to look away now. She could still see that hurt. The longing he tried to hide, but failed. But this time, he wanted her to see it; He wanted her to know that if something happened to her, it would affect him deeply.

"I'm always careful."

Steve snorted in contempt.

She angled a glare at him. "Sometimes! I can be careful if I want to, Mr. let me just fall off a four story building—no biggie."

Bruce pointed to both of them, and directed his words to Tony. "You see how well this is going to go without Clint for a buffer."

"I'm just being saddled with a fossil." Natasha complained.

"And I get stuck with the ex-KGB. This isn't fun for either of us, sweetheart."

Thor laughed. "Oh, I do think I will rather enjoy these dynamics. Lady Widow is a passionate teammate, though I would gather our friend, the Captain, would rather jump in a den of Gunlacks than attempt to cross her path."

"So it's decided then." Clint regained the floor. "Deep cover. No back up. If I need help, I'll summon my bow, and you can track it. What if you need to get a hold of me?"

"Scheduled drops to keep you updated. Disposable phone for serious emergency basis only." Natasha said. "Just like Rio. What location will you stay in? Centrally?"

"New York. I'm not going far."

"White X on the side of the pizzeria two streets over from Steve's apartment?"

"I know the place."

"Day one, white X. I'll give you a week to see it. When you do, go to the dog park with Arrow, and have him dig under the v-shaped tree on the east corner. I'll leave contact info for you there."

"I'll turn on the disposable every three days between 4 am and 6 am." Clint said, looking around to see if the others were following along. "Beside that, if a major catastrophe takes place, or we get invaded by giant mutant spiders, I can catch it on the news."

The room absorbed a sort of contemplative calm that stretched for many long minutes. The reality of what they were doing sank into them like a stone in a river. For all the world knew, Clint was throwing his life away, and to ask such a thing of him should not be taken lightly. Given all they had gone through in only the last few days, they wanted to rescind their decisions the minute the details had been ironed out.

Clint broke the quiet as he saw the changes passing over his friend's faces. "It's the right choice. I'm the right person for it, too. I've been with SHIELD longer than anyone. If there's one person in this group who has a chance to see what is happening, that person is me. I want to do this."

They let the words hang in the air as the truth seeped through.

"So what's our time frame? When am I going?"

For that, they looked to Tony.

"They just tortured two of us, I could say that means they are escalating. And the sooner we take them down, the sooner Clint can be my best man."

The heavy mood lightened appreciably as the realization hit. They had almost forgotten the one joy to come out of this week of trouble; Pepper and Tony's soon-to-be matrimonial bliss. Pain was still to come. Clint had much to recover from after the ordeal that nearly unraveled his entire life, but getting away like this was just what he needed to face those demons he hid in the company of others. He wanted this time alone, to realize who he was again and reevaluate his life. He couldn't do that in this company, not with those false memories clouding over him like an ominous foreshadowing of a life he'd never have.

As conversation turned, from the details of his departure, to how Tony was possibly going to follow up on Thor's alien Macy's day parade, Clint relaxed back in his chair. Arrow had come over to him and flopped at his feet, as if unwilling to let his master go again. He knew the wolf felt things as deeply as any man could. The animal could sense his distress the moment they were flung back together. He felt grateful that, on this journey, Arrow would be coming along with him. He wasn't sure how Tony planned to handle the empty nest of losing both his best friend next to Banner and his adopted dog in the same fell swoop, but somehow he would manage.

Then, of course, there was Natasha. As Clint closed his eyes he could still see her there. Red lips waiting for him. Her fingers brushing into the hair of their children. Her attempt, and failure, at cooking a few gnarled steaks before he came to her rescue. It was so blissful, perfect, and horribly real. He dwelled for a while on those private memories he shared with no one else. He didn't care if the others watched the films, they still couldn't understand how he'd _felt_. It was heaven. It didn't matter if the feeling came from the drugs or from the false reality. He just liked that feeling, the feeling that the fight was over. The time of rest had come, and everyone had lived to see it.

When he opened his eyes, he realized he must have fallen asleep in his chair. Night had descended and someone had cushioned a pillow beneath his head, and draped a blanket over him. Arrow abandoned his feet, and now sat with his hind end and back legs on the couch, his chest on the coffee table, and his front paws and heads resting on Clint's knees. Most assuredly, Tony had gone to bed long before that happened.

He moved to shift his position, but found it difficult under the weight of someone else. He turned slightly to see the mop of disheveled red hair he recognized at once as Natasha's. She'd managed to squeeze him to one side of the small arm chair, and took over the rest for herself.

"Do you need to fire an arrow to know this is real?" She whispered, apparently fully conscious.

"Not this time." Clint replied.

"Go back to sleep."

"My leg's tingling." He replied.

She moved slightly, just enough to release the pressure on his leg and allow the blood flow to return to it. She adjusted his blanket over her shoulders, and rested her head back on his chest.

Hearing them, Arrow began to thump his tail.

"You woke the kid." She sighed.

"You woke him."

"It freaked me out. But it was kind of nice too."

"That life we had?" Clint asked.

"I've been thinking about it."

"Me too."

They were quiet for a moment, thinking of that life again.

"You know we could never be that. I could never . . ." She lifted off of him, bracing her weight on her palms. "You know I can't . . ."

He nodded. "I know."

"I never knew you were the kind of guy that would want kids."

"I didn't know, either."

"But you do."

Clint dug his arm out from beneath the blanket. He cupped her chin with his hand. The bruises were still there, spreading beneath his skin, looking worse before they looked better. When he spoke, a softness entered his voice that dropped the careful guard she worked so hard to put in place. That was his job, unarming her. She hated his uncanny talent for it.

"Tash, right now it's not fair to ask anything of you. Not when I know I'm not going to be able to see you. But it made me really, really happy to be with you, even if it was a lie. And I don't think my life, in reality or in my dreams, would be right without you."

She turned his hand over, searching for those old pin point scars she'd given him, among the new ones orchestrated by his own brother. Clint had no reason to trust anyone in his life; not his parents, not his mentors, not his own flesh and blood. Even Fury lied to his face about Coulson's death. She'd caused just as much harm as any of them had, and yet here he was, still believing in her.

"I'm not a good person, you know. Maybe Dream-Nat was, but I'm not. I don't even know who I am."

"Are you jealous of the woman that doesn't exist?" Clint asked, a little surprised.

"Don't be an idiot."

"I just want to know where I stand here. Cause when I fall asleep, me and Dream-Nat might just be making out - "

She dropped his hand and kissed him fiercely. Being her man, had its perks. Natasha was a passionate lover, attentive and skilled in ways that most men couldn't handle. Being loved by her, could be as much a brutal punishment as it was enjoyment. That kiss was a little of both.

Clint laced his arm around her waist. "Well, at least I don't need to floss my teeth now."

She kissed him again. It was another painful, pleasurable reminder of how deep her hold on his heart was.

"Nat," he breathed, pressing his forehead against hers. "You might not be at the Tower when this blows up. You shouldn't be. It would look too obvious if you didn't do something about it, or convince me out of it."

"I know." She whispered.

The days to come weren't going to be easy on them, but if there was one piece of solace he could take with him going out, it was this. The bond they had, was something even Charles Barton and his scientist could get right. If they failed in every other way, then this was the moment they succeeded. As Clint took her into his one good arm, he worked on forming new memories to push out the ones of old.

This was real. These were memories. These he cherished.

The world could wait for now. The dead could bury themselves in his mind, and Charles Barton was out there to find another day. For now, there was only this.

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the cuteness! little Arrow not wanting to leave him, Natasha's raw revelation about her inability to give Clint the children he may want, Clint's overlooking of that...OMG.

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	14. Epilogue

ITS THE DRAMATIC CONCLUSION! Get your hankies ready people!

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Epilogue

The cast lasted precisely three weeks before Clint walked down into Tony's lab, and used a miter saw to cut it off his forearm. If he planned to use his bow for this death match, he couldn't have the extra cast weight keeping him down, and working against his aim. He found Tony's old air cast, from his first broken arm, in the shared bathroom, and decided to go with that instead. At least now he could fit it in his long sleeves. He stocked his quiver with trick arrows and standard tips, and zipped up his vest as he grabbed the entire lot of them.

Arrow knew something changed in the air. The growing wolf paced back and forth, keeping right on his owner's leg as the man walked around the lab. To the wolf, this meant a trip; a ride in the car with his head shoved out a window, or the possibility of a great adventure to the closest Brooklyn pizza shop for a slice of meat lovers. The pink tongue poked out the side of his mouth as he salivated in excitement.

Occasionally, Clint would drop his hand to the wolf's head and stroke the fur. "Going on a trip? Get your stuff, we won't be back here for a while. Go get your bowl."

Arrow bounded away on four overgrown paws. He grabbed the tin dog dish Tony fabricated out of, what he considered, the "Hawkeye" colors: amethyst and black metal. Arrow returned to set it on the workbench. Clint slid it into the duffle bag along with a few spare arrow tips.

"Don't forget your toys." Clint said to the wolf.

Arrow's ears perked. He pounced off to the steel box beside his food, and dropped his nose inside. He returned carrying a softball, a three foot squeaky gecko, and a bumble ball all at the same time. Clint chuckled at the selection and set them inside the bowl.

The lab elevator opened and Tony strode out, flipping through the hologram of his cell phone. Noticing Clint and Arrow with the ready duty pack, brought him up short. He slipped a hand across the hologram and placed the phone in his pocket.

"Did Fury call, or are you and Molotov off for another sexy weekend?"

"You know what this is." Clint said. Arrow's head went from one of his favorite people to the other. His tail fanned the air in nervous excitement.

Tony tensed. "We _just_ got you back. Did you forget asking me to score you crack? I didn't! Is this really the best time to be doing this?"

"We already discussed this, Tony. And it's been three weeks." Clint replied easily. This wasn't coming as a surprise to anyone. They needed to act swiftly. If Clint had any hope of tracking down these leads in Blackstone he had to start working on them now before they caught on to him.

"I know we talked about it, but—"

Clint zipped his duffle closed and swung it over his shoulder. "It should happen now, while there is still a good excuse. What Barney did to me, those scientists, really screwed me up. I felt betrayed that no one found us ahead of time, that SHIELD sat on their hands and it took Phil's call to get the search party underway. I want revenge, Cap wants justice, you try to talk me out of it, and I take off."

The Asgardian bow shimmered to life, appearing in his left hand.

Tony may not like it, but there was no denying the point Clint made. He tried his final card, to prevent this meeting from being the last for months to come. "What about Natasha?"

"Already said goodbye." Clint returned without missing a beat.

Tony opened his mouth, and then closed it. He held an expression of pure disgruntlement. It was his intention to be far away from the Tower when this bit of Hell came crashing down on them, but unfortunately for him, Clint decided to take some initiative. His eyes diverted around the room, as if intending to manufacture another excuse, but coming up with none. They'd put this off long enough with one mission or another. He'd worked himself to the bone, the entire team had, to track down Charles Barton once and for all to no avail. When the man disappeared, he truly fell off the planet. Thor himself was still out tracking down a potential lead on the southern coast of Canada. Clint's departure may flush Charles out.

The GH serum leads got them no where fast. Even a heated call to Phil produced no more information on the origin, make, or model. Coulson assured him he intended to look more in depth at the case and planned to contact them if anything new arose. As for what exactly was contained in the parcel Clint and the Captain transported in the first place, SHIELD went silent. Not willingly to accept that as an answer, Steve and Romanov both took a trip to D.C. in order to shake information out of some Level 10 agents.

It was high time to get this over with.

"So," Tony said, folding his arms. "You've planned this out. Baywatch is out playing mounty. Tasha-tots is down with the Capsicle and won't be back till tomorrow. Pepper just left ten minutes ago to drive with Bruce back to Princeton. It's just you and me."

"Yeah, that's how I planned it."

"So are we fixing to wrestle, Carny-boy?"

"Something like that. Put on your suit."

No sooner had the words left his mouth, the room exploded with light and movement. Clint drew his first trick arrow, a flash bomb, and the lab engulfed in crackles of smoke and light. Confused, Arrow instantly fell back on his training and stuck to Clint's side. The closest Iron Man suit leaped from the shelf, guided by Tony's invisible call as it clung against him piece by piece.

This was a first for them. Stark and Clint had numerous small skirmishes in their past. Their second meeting included a poolside bout that left Tony nearly drowning, while Clint held his damaged ribs and laughed. Since that time, they were common sparring partners. Similar in height and body mass, they hit the gym to kick the crap out of each other in the name of practice. After over two years of this continuous amount of conditioning to one another's fighting style, this moment would be their most epic yet. No holds barred.

Clint knew his arm would be his handicap, so he had to strike soon and fast. Both knew very well that for this plan of theirs to work, they had to move out into public. Destroying a little bit of the Tower in the meantime would score a considerable amount of bonus points for the, Clint-has-gone-rogue, column. That, and the archer took a little sadistic pleasure in destroying the toys Tony often tormented him with.

Bucket containing dry ice? Exploded. Phosphoric acid used to melt through his door handle? A blunt arrow threw that bottle over Tony's desk top. Fire extinguisher at three am? It exploded in a hailstorm of canister parts and white smoke.

Clint got lost in the cloud for a moment before Tony rushed him from behind, and threw him into a bear hug. He was in full armor now.

"So, what story are we running with?" Tony asked curiously as he squeezed Clint's arms against his chest.

"Just follow my lead and try to keep up." Clint replied. He dropped his weight forward, pulling Stark off balance before he twisted himself sideways, dragging Tony's right arm with him. Now, Clint stood behind him with Stark's arm at an impossible angle.

Tony fired the repulsor and Clint flew forward with the force. The archer recovered through a forward body tumble, and came to his knees with an arrow ready. A net tip rocketed from the shaft, and tied Tony to the floor beneath the weight of it.

The growing wolf remained off to the side of the battle scene, watching its masters' duel fiercely against each other. Usually, if Clint invited him into the fray, he would attack on an instant, but this time, he remained on the sidelines in wonderment. Together, the men grappled one another first in front of him, and then to his left, lastly they shot up toward the ceiling with the aid of Tony's anti-gravs, until Clint's exploding tip hit the lab floor. Suddenly, the first level of R&D had a new elevator shaft leading directly down to the office below. Workers scattered, screaming. Their audience prepped, Tony released Clint to fall his way to the desk stations. Arrow trotted over and leaped down as well.

"Mr. Hawkeye?" A woman cried, shocked to see the archer sprawled over her table top.

Clint grunted, carefully cradling his arm as he pushed himself up. "Mrs. Holloway! How's Bohdi?"

"Why . . . uh, fine - "

Stark dropped from the ceiling, and destroyed the desk beside Clint.

"You know, we could have settled this without you wrecking my stuff."

Clint reached into his quiver and grabbed the next great trick tip. "You think this could have gone any other way?"

"Yeah, actually, I can have JARVIS calculate the - "

Clint fired an EMP, shorting out Tony's suit, if only temporarily. He stood, grabbing the next arrow, ignoring the attempts the office workers made to separate them.

"Shut up! That's all you do! You know what, Stark, maybe for once I'd like to have a life, and not just be some stooge for SHIELD, or Cap, or you!"

Tony managed to lift his faceplate, allowing them to stare eye-to-eye. The genuine concern was there, just as Clint expected it to be. Tony attempted to weigh how much of what Clint threw at him came from deep seated facts he never shared. This mission in Mexico rattled the team in more ways than one. It drudged up thoughts and feelings, either left buried or ignored. Tony saw a side of Clint, in that nanotech feed, he never thought could exist in his smart-mouth friend. As much as he didn't want to let the words hurt him, what Clint said now would stay with him forever.

But this wasn't the place for Clint's big reveal. They needed to be outside, captured by the world of camera phones and video uploads. Clint initiated it. The next tip he fired, exploded in Stark's core, throwing him backwards through a plate glass window. The cut he received scarred over, creating an indent through his left eyebrow. Barton followed him out, after grabbing his duffle, and ordering Arrow to head for the street. He knew the office workers would see to it he didn't get lost.

He had to fire two grappling arrows to make it down to street level. Tony, recovering most of his motor functions already, peeled out of a crushed powder blue Prius. Clint hit the roadway across from him, with the duffle slung over his chest and his bow set with a second arrow.

"Get up, Stark!" he shouted, circling the fellow Avenger.

Tony shook his head to clear the cobwebs of the thirty story drop. The streets were busy, and getting more congested by the second. A ring of the New York populace surrounded them. As suspected, the sight of the two warring Avengers was all they needed to collect in thicker masses.

"Get up!" Clint roared. He fired the first arrow, a standard tip which imbedded in Tony's shoulder plate, and readied a second on his bowstring.

Tony stood slowly to face him.

"I had everything I ever wanted!" Clint continued to shout, loud enough for the whole world to hear his words over and over on every news station for the next two months. "I had everything, and you just took it away from me!"

"It wasn't real!" Tony shouted back. He rubbed a gauntlet in his face, smearing the blood from his eye.

"It didn't matter!"

"It's the only thing that matters!" Tony stepped down from the wrecked hood of the Prius and crossed the sidewalk. Clint stood smack in the middle of the avenue. Traffic stopped, though even on this busy street of the city, no one honked to get them out of the way. The world was paralyzed as they watched.

"That world wasn't real! I found you, and brought you home! I fought hard to get you back, and how do you decide to show your gratitude? Like this?" Tony acted less and felt more. It was impossible with Clint to know what words he meant, and those he conjured up.

"You saved me?" Clint asked incredulously.

"Yes! I - "

The archer rushed him. Tony grabbed him sideways, throwing him into the asphalt, but Barton broke free on the ground, ramming an arrow tip between his plates of armor so hard, Tony could feel the tip meet skin. Mercifully he didn't jab harder, though Tony imagined it didn't look much different for those standing around them. Tony peeled back, rolling onto his side as he gingerly touched the arrow shaft.

Clint scrambled free, grabbed the end of his Asgardian bow like a club, and tried to swing it toward Stark's face. Tony barely dodged in time to avoid the full brunt of the weapon. He shot backwards with his repulsors, got some air beneath them, and hovered just out of reach. Clint pulled another standard tip, keeping the center of Stark's forehead in his sights.

"You know what would have stopped this? YOU, actually showing up and saving someone who mattered. We're friends, Tony! Where were you when I needed you? The one time I need someone else to bail me out, and where were you? You didn't even know I was gone! SHIELD would have left me there to die! If Captain America wasn't there, would you have even come to find me?"

Tony's heart beat frantically in his throat. He had to remind himself this was all an act, and that Clint didn't really hate him. Keeping his head on straight wasn't easy. He lost himself in the passion of Clint's accusations, and the words he came to regret poured out of him.

"You want that fake life of yours back? Then why don't you go back to sticking a needle in your arm to bring them all back? Your kids, your wife, that great big life you want so much. All just waiting at the end of your PCP pipe. Why don't you just get it over with?"

Another arrow fired in his direction, and Tony caught it before the tip burrowed into his chest plate. But this one was another trick shot. Half a second after Tony grasped the shaft, the tip erupted in a gaseous cloud. He held his breath, dropped his face plate, and went back on the offensive side.

He hit Clint with a right shoulder, lifting the archer off his feet and into a light post. Clint cried out with the force of the hit and the accompanying grasp around his still healing arm. Tony swung the archer by the offended limb, and flung him, straight into the arms of the shocked populace. Four Avengers fans worked in tandem to get Clint back of his feet, but that did little to his roughened arm. If he wasn't careful, the newspapers in the morning would report something very similar to his Deathlock story; only, instead of the faceless cyborg, Iron Man would be the cause of him never shooting again.

"You were like my brother! I thought I could count on you!" Clint roared.

"Well isn't that some angel to get compared to! Maybe next time you should get _yourself_ out of danger, and leave the damsel in distress routine to people who aren't trying to be drug addicts." Tony's words were harsher than he ever meant them to be.

The phrase hit Clint like a closed fist. This was it, the final straw. Clint opened his bow hand, and the Asgardian bow faded away from view. He next grabbed the quiver from his back, and threw it in the street.

"I'm done." He said quietly.

"What do you mean, 'you're done'?"

Clint's wolf blasted through the front doors of Stark Tower to stand beside his master. The tension between them was as palpable as an electric current. Men and women stood to the side, and watched with bated breath as the Avengers came to terms with this massive change in their lives.

"I mean, I'm out!" Clint clarified.

"So what? You QUIT SHIELD, and now you're quitting US? Just like that?"

"Just like that." Clint emptied his pockets of the stray arrow tips and nocks. Even in reality, that little part of him didn't change.

"You can't quit!"

Clint grabbed the arrow head necklace he'd worn since just after his and Tony's first mission together. A woman he reportedly rescued, gave it to him and he had yet to take it off since. He tugged the cord until the leather strap ripped in half. That too, he tossed into the pile of gear on the sidewalk.

"I can. I am."

He crossed the asphalt to grab his bag, which dislodged in their fight. He reached for it with his right hand, and the minute he attempted to lift it, the acute pain of his freshly broken forearm shot through him. He felt like he was replaying those scenes in his memories. The ones where he could no longer shoot, where he was no longer SHIELD or an Avenger. Only this time, he carved the future himself. His decision had been made without the need for coercion, or drugs, or nanotech.

He hit his knees, playing up the pain Tony caused him. It was nothing compared to being electrocuted with a cattle prod, but to a public who had never been exposed to such visceral weakness in their heroes, Clint crumbled up on that asphalt was like watching him die.

Tony stepped toward him, the shock on his face hidden beneath the shadow of his mask.

Clint brushed him off, taking up his packed bag with his opposite hand. He made a motion to Arrow and the wolf fell in line beside him.

"Where are you going? Hawkeye, don't—"

"I'm not Hawkeye. Not anymore."

With his life carried by a single strap, his wolf trotting with lowered ears and tail by his side, and not a single arrow, Clint Barton brushed his way through the crowd. Men, women, and children cleared a path as he walked through them. A few of the braver souls offered a kind word, three tried to stop him, to talk some sense into him, but Clint didn't listen. He removed the transmitters to his hearing aids, and switched off the frequency. Walking deaf, lessened the blow of those hearts he crushed. He tried not to look in their faces. This had to be done. For the safety of the world, he had to fall on this sword.

Tony remained where he stood, watching Clint turn his back and run away with the mess of abandoned gear left behind. It felt real. It felt like he and Clint were parting ways once and for all, no matter what happened with Blackstone. Tony wanted to run after him, stop him, but Clint was a trained spy. Within half a minute, even the street gawkers lost him in their midst. Arrow most likely changed shape, and that would be all.

Phase one of their plan to catch Charles Barton, Blackstone, and the rest of Clint's captors was in motion. They had to play their parts, or everything would be worthless. All the torture Clint endured, would boil down to nothing gained.

So Tony watched him go, even as Clint never looked back.

* * *

THE CLIFFHANGER ENDING!

muhahahahaha.

want to know what happens next? Stay tuned for the next installment of my epic adventure!

**Untitled**_:_ _Alone in the world after a staged fight with Tony Stark, Clint goes under deep cover to infiltrate the secret organization known only as Blackstone and hopefully in the process find his own sadistic brother, Charles Barton. He knows they work with in SHIELD, and the dying breath of the Blackstone agent he knew came only with a single word: "Hydra". With little to go on, Clint needs to bring in outside assistance to catch these sleeper agents working within SHIELD. For that help, he goes to his own eye-in-the-sky, Peter Parker. But will Peter accept working with a man who the world considers a loser, dropout, drunkard, ex-hero crucified by all those who once esteemed him? Read and find out!_

**dont forget to review!**


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